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FRENCH  LITERATURE 
OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


BY 


ALBERT  SCHINZ 

PBOFESSOK  OF  FRENCH   LITEEATUBE 
AT  SMITH  COLLEGE 


D.  APPLETON    AND   COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1920 


n  i 


72070 


. ;  ■;  ^  '•      COPTRIGIIT,^  .1920;.  '5t 
b,  APPLETON  AND.  Cp]\ffANY 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


:0 


^.3 


Great  heart  of  France  which  has  withstood  so  well 
The  blasts  of  battle  and  the  gates  of  hell 

Our  love  is  thine.  .  .  . 

Edmund  Vance  Cooke. 


Oui,  mon  coq  glorieux, 
C'est  toi  qui   fais   lever   I'aurore! 

Rostand,  Chantecleb. 


FOREWORD 

The  output  of  French  war  literature  has  been 
very  great.  This  may  not  seem  surprising  when 
one  thinks  of  the  importance  of  the  crisis  through 
which  France  has  just  passed,  but  it  is  so  when 
one  realizes  how  that  country  had  to  exert  all 
its  strength  to  keep  itself  from  being  submerged ; 
literature  in  such  circumstances,  is  more  than 
ever  a  luxury. 

How  shall  we  define  the  scope  of  this  study? 
In  one  sense,  we  have  been  very  broad  in  our 
selection  of  material.  Apart  from  works  deal- 
ing technically  with  the  history  of  the  war,  and 
which  we  have  left  out,  we  have  surveyed  all 
kinds  of  books;  for  literature  has  no  domain  of 
its  own.  According  to  time  and  circumstances, 
it  may  include  almost  anything.  With  Ronsard 
and  Victor  Hugo,  it  is  poetry;  with  Comeille 
and  Racine  it  is  drama ;  but  it  is  philosophy  with 
Descartes,  Malebranche  and  Renan;  ethics  with 
La  Bruyere  and  Marmontel ;  theology  with  Bos- 
suet  and  Joseph  de  ]\Iaistre;  medicine  with 
Claude  Bernard  and  Pasteur;  psychology  with 
Montaigne,  Marivaux  and  Le  Sage ;  history  with 
Voltaire,  Michelet  and  Taine;  politics  and  politi- 
cal economy  with  Fenelon,  Montesquieu,  Rous- 


FOREWORD 

seau  and  Fustel  de  Coulanges ;  etc.,  etc.  War, — 
and  especially  the  Great  War, — stirs  up  thoughts 
along  all  these  lines,  and  it  would  be  very  ar- 
bitrary to  decide  which  writings  must  be  re- 
garded as  literature,  and  which  must  not. 

In  another  sense,  it  has  been  necessary  for  us 
to  narrow  our  field  by  imposing  upon  ourselves 
considerable  restrictions.  It  has  often  been  very 
difficult  to  resist  the  temptation  of  including, — 
for  the  sake  of  full  treatment,  and  in  order  to 
do  justice  to  all, — many  excellent  works.  Too 
bulky  a  volume  would  have  defeated  the  end 
which  we  have  in  view.  The  following  course 
seemed  the  best  one  in  the  circumstances:  To 
make  a  first  selection  according  to  a  general  cri- 
terion of  excellence  and  originality.  This  was, 
in  many  cases,  an  easy  matter  because  excel- 
lence and  originality  went  together  in  the  same 
books,  as,  for  instance,  in  Benjamin's  Gaspard; 
Barbusse's  Le  Feu;  in  the  anonymous  Lettres 
d'un  Soldat;  in  Erlande's  En  Campagne  avec 
la  Legion  Etrangere,  Duhamel's  Vie  des  Mar- 
tyrs,  Jaques   Blanche's    Cahiers   d'un   Artiste; 

Y 's  Odyssee  d'un  Transport  Torpille;  or, 

on  the  stage,  in  Bernstein's  Elevation;  or,  in  poe- 
try, in  Verhaeren's  Ailes  Rouges,  in  Mercier's 
Prieres  de  la  Tranchee,  and  in  Mare  Leclerc's  La 
Passion  de  Notre  Frere  le  Poilu. 

Very  often,  however,  there  were  several  ex- 
viii 


FOREWORD 

cellent  books  representing  the  same  important 
trend  of  inspiration.  In  these  cases  we  had  to 
eliminate  with  a  view  to  avoiding  monotony. 
The  writer  believes  that  he  has  succeeded  in 
bringing  in  a  new  note  with  the  treatment  of 
each  new  volume,  but  he  frankly  acknowledges 
that  the  choice  between  works  of  a  similar 
nature  has  been  determined  at  times  by  causes 
imponderable.  The  determining  factor  may 
have  been  the  verdict  of  the  French  reading 
public,  or  it  may  have  been  subjective  preference. 
For  instance,  the  author  would  not  care  to  be 
called  upon  to  account  with  scientific  thorough- 
ness for  his  selection  of  Thomas'  Les  Diahles 
Bleus  and  Pericard's  Ceux  de  Verdun,  in  prefer- 
ence to  Belmont's  Lettres  d'un  Officier  de 
Chasseurs  Alpins,  Marcel  Dupont's  En  Cam- 
pagne  1914-15,  and  later,  L'Attente,^  or  Dieter- 
len's  Le  Bois  le  Pretre,  Dubarle's  Lettres  de 
Guerre,  Jubert's  Verdun,  etc.  Again  some  may 
think  that  Lieut.  E.  R.  (Tuffrau's)  Carnet  d'un 
Comhattant,  Roujon's  Carnet  de  Route,  Paul- 
han's  La  Guerre  Appliquee,  Julia's  Mort  du 
Soldat,  or  many  others,  deserved  just  as  much 

1  Perhaps  the  reason  why  Dupont  was  not  chosen  is 
because  he  is  so  good  that  no  comment  can  be  made 
which  is  not  superfluous.  The  sixty  editions  through 
which  his  first  volume  ran  before  the  close  of  the  war 
are  a  very  just  measure  of  the  value  of  that  remarkable 
work. 


FOREWORD 

to  be  analyzed  as  Redier's  Meditations  dans  la 
Tranchee  or  Genevoix's  Sous  Verdun  or  Del- 
vert's  Histoire  d'une  Compagnie.  The  same 
problem  confronted  us  in  dealing  with  poetry, 
the  stage,  and  the  novel,  although  it  was  rather 
easier  to  come  to  a  decision  in  those  cases  than 
when  dealing  with  war  recollections  or  analyses 
of  the  psychology  of  the  soldier. 


Many  readers  are  guided  in  the  selection  of 
their  books  by  the  fame  of  the  authors.  At  no 
time  is  the  name  of  an  author  a  certain  guarantee 
of  the  excellence  of  the  work,  and  in  the  special 
case  of  war  literature,  it  offers  none  whatever. 
Indeed,  none  of  the  well  known  pre-war  writers 
have  produced  during  the  war  anything  that 
commands  attention  as  a  masterpiece;  and  this 
is  quite  natural,  for  veterans  in  the  field  of 
literature  do  not  belong  to  the  war  generation 
and  can  therefore  hardly  be  its  spokesmen. 
Anatole  France,  Pierre  Loti,  Maeterlinck,  Bour- 
get,  and  Bazin  have  added  nothing  new  to  what 
they  had  been  saying  for  many  years  previously ; 
Rostand's  fame  would  suffer  heavily  if  he  was 
judged  by  his  writings  since  1914;  fortunately 
for  him  his  two  best  war-poems  Cyrano  de  Ber- 
gerac  and  L'Aiglon  had  been  written  long  before 
the  war.  Such  men  as  Porto-Riche,  Bataille, 
z 


FOREWORD 

Abel  Hermant  have  fallen  below  the  mark  they 
themselves  had  set  in  the  past.  Some,  like 
Henri  de  Regnier,  the  war  seems  to  have  entirely 
paralyzed. 

The  only  two  cases  in  which  one  may  be 
tempted  to  take  exception  to  our  statement — 
that  writers  whose  reputation  was  established 
before  the  war  have  rarely  done  any  original 
work  since  1914 — are  that  of  Bernstein  in  his 
drama  L'Mevation,^  and  that  of  Verhaeren, 
stirred  up  to  really  powerful  satire  by  the  wrong 
done  to  Belgium,  his  own  country,  in  his  Ailes 
Rouges  de  la  Guerre. 

So  the  reader  must  expect  to  come  across  new 
names  chiefly.  Indeed,  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing features  of  the  war  literature  is  that  it 
acquaints  us  with  many  hitherto  unknown  but 
admirable  writers. 


One  more  remark. 

As  everywhere  else,  war  has  created  extraor- 
dinary circumstances  in  the  domain  of  literature ; 
this  is  true  not  only  as  regards  the  contents  of 
the  war  books,  but  also  as  regards  the  forms  in 
which  the  writers  presented  their  thoughts. 
War   literature    created    its    own   style.     Quite 

1  This  play,  however,  has  been  severely  judged  by 
several   French  critics. 

xi 


FOREWORD 

naturally  the  traditional  distinctions  of  de- 
scriptive, dramatic,  lyric,  and  epic  styles  were 
disregarded.  In  most  cases  the  form  adopted 
was  that  of  War  Recollections.  By  far  the 
greatest  part  of  war  literature  is  written  in  un- 
conventional style  and  will  be  described  in  the 
first  part  of  the  following  work. 

At  the  same  time,  in  some  cases,  especially  in 
that  of  lyrism,  and  to  some  extent  in  that  of  the 
stage,  but  less  in  that  of  prose  fiction,  the  con- 
ventional literary  genres  continued  to  obtain 
with  good  writers.  We  will  deal  with  these 
products  in  a  second  part. 


The  reader  will  find  at  the  end  of  the  volume 
additional  data  on  the  following  points : 

I.  Indications  where  to  find  more  detailed 
bibliographical  information  than  we  could  offer 
in  the  text,  concerning  the  literature  of  the  war. 

II.  Documents  relative  to  the  war,  not  coming 
within  the  domain  of  literature,  but  comple- 
mentary' to  it;  history  of  the  pre-war  period; 
chronicles ;  discussions  and  comments  relating  to 
special  phases  of  the  war;  appreciations  by 
military  critics;  descriptions  of  great  battles  by 
non-combatants;  life  in  the  trenches;  the  part 
played  by  various  branches  of  the  service;  psy- 
chology of  the  soldier;  military  vocabulary  and 


FOREWORD 

slang;    illustrated    war-books,    and    war-news- 
papers. 

III.  A  catalogue — not  a  full  one  indeed,  but 
as  carefully  drawn  up  as  seemed  possible — of  the 
best  French  war-diaries  and  volumes  of  war- 
recollections. 


This  book  would  not  have  been  completed,  at 
least  so  soon,  had  it  not  been  for  the  kind  as- 
sistance— which  sometimes  was  almost  a  collabo- 
ration— given  by  Professor  Osmond  T.  Robert, 
our  colleague  in  the  French  Department  at 
Smith  College.  To  him  we  owe  most  hearty 
thanks. 

Towards  another  of  my  colleagues.  Miss  Helen 
Maxwell  King,  we  feel  greatly  indebted  for  the 
expert  help  which  she  gave  in  the  ungrateful 
task  of  drawing  up  the  Index. 

We  express  our  gratitude  also  to  Professor  E. 
P.  Dargan,  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  who 
very  kindly  went  over  our  manuscript,  offering 
valuable  suggestions. 

We  wish  further  to  acknowledge  the  courtesy 
of  the  editors  of  various  periodicals  which  al- 
lowed us  to  make  use  again  of  material  which 
had  appeared,  above  our  signature,  in  their 
columns:  The  Journal  of  Philosophij,  Psy- 
chology and  Scientific  Methods;  The  American 
ziii 


FOREWORD 

Journal  of  Psychology ;  Medicine  and  Surgery; 
Modern  Philology;  Publications  of  the  Modern 
Language  Association  of  America.  And  per- 
haps we  ought  to  mention  also  the  New  Inter- 
national Year-Book  where  we  had  recorded  be- 
fore— although  in  much  briefer  form — the  out- 
put of  the  French  Literature  of  the  Great  War. 

Albert  Schinz. 


XIV 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 

PAGE 

I.     Period    of     Emotional    Keactiox — Immedi- 
ately Afteb  the  Outbreak  of  the  War  .       5 

II.     Period      of      Documentation — Commencing 

ABOut  THE  Spring  of  1915 27 

III.  Period  of  Philosophical  and  Political 
Considerations  Suggested  by  the  War 
(More  Especially  Since  the  Beginning 
of  1917) 230 

PART  II 

I.    Poetry  of  the  War 293 

II.     The  Stage  and  the  War 338 

III.    War- Time  Fiction 363 

Epilogue 381 

APPENDICES 

I.     Bibliography 391 

II.    Documents  Relati\'e  to  the  War  ....   397 

III.  Catalogue,  in  Alphabetical  Order,  of  Some 
of  the  Best  War  Diaries  and  Recollec- 
tions     405 


INTRODUCTORY 

It  is  possible  to  distinguish  three  periods  in 
the  war  literature  of  France  between  1914  and 
1918,  The  first  was  one  of  spontaneous,  sudden 
and  strongly  emotional  reaction,  following  im- 
mediately the  first  bewildering  shock ;  the  second, 
one  of  documentation  on  the  causes  of  the  war 
and  on  the  war  itself;  and  the  third,  a  period 
of  calm  philosophical  consideration  of  all  that  was 
involved  in  the  gigantic  struggle,  characterized 
by  a  reconsideration  of  the  past,  a  weighing  of 
the  present,  and  especially  an  effort  to  prepare 
for  the  fntnre. 

It  needs  scareelv  to  be  said  that  although, — 
as  indeed  wa'^  nnite  natural. — the  lyric  and  sa- 
tirical nnto  rtredoniinated  in  the  first  period, 
memoir  literature  in  the  second,  and  philosophi- 
cal pssavs  and  treatises  in  the  third,  no  period 
profluced  one  tyne  of  literature  to  the  exclusion 
of  all  others.  A  few  philosophical  writings  be- 
gan to  appear  very  early  in  the  war,  and  the 
publication  of  documents  of  historical  and  psy- 
chological interest  by  no  means  came  to  an  end 
when  the  theorists  became  more  numerous; 
neither,  indeed,  did  thev  cease  to  appear  before 
1 


INTRODUCTORY 

the  end  of  the  war  and  even  after;  and  at  all 
stages  of  the  conflict,  there  has  been  abundant 
reason  for  emotional  inspiration. 

But,  while  fully  conscious  of  those  facts,  we 
have  adopted  the  above  classification,  first  be- 
cause it  does  actually  correspond,  in  a  general 
way,  to  what  happened,  and  also  for  the  sake 
of  clearness  in  discussing  the  subject. 


PART  I 


FRENCH  LITERATURE 
OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


CHAPTER  I 

PERIOD    OF    EMOTIONAL    REACTION— IMMEDI- 
ATELY AFTER  THE   OUTBREAK  OF 
THE  WAR 

The  war  took  almost  every  one  by  surprise. 
The  first  expression  of  thought,  after  the  imme- 
diate danger  was  passed,  that  is,  after  the  first 
battle  of  the  Mame,  was  an  outburst  of  indigna- 
tion at  the  treacherous  attack  which  had  been 
made  by  the  Central  Powers,  and  also  at  the 
blindness  of  the  French  people  who  had  allowed 
themselves  to  be  lured  into  a  fatal,  sentimental 
quietude  by  the  stupendous  hypocrisy  of  their 
neighbors  on  the  Eastern  frontier.  To  this  in- 
dignation were  soon  added  the  anger,  disgust 
and  horror  caused  by  the  atrocious  application 
by  the  German  army,  in  Belgium  and  Northern 
France,  of  the  barbarian  policy  of  terrorization. 

These  manifestations  of  burning  patriotism 
5 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

appeared  in  the  few  newspapers  which  did  not 
stop  publication,  or  which  did  so  only  for  a  very- 
short  time :  Le  Temps,  Les  Dehats,  Le  Figaro, 
L'Echo  de  Paris,  Le  Journal,  Le  Matin, 
L' Homme  Lihre,  and  then  L' Homme  Enchaine, 
and  the  still  less  numerous  periodicals  like  the 
Eevue  des  Deux  Mondes,  Revue  de  Paris,  I'lllus- 
tration,  la  Revue  Hehdomadaire,  la  Revue,  les 
Annales.  Towards  the  end  of  the  spring  of 
1915,  as  France  began  to  return  to  more  normal 
conditions,  the  articles  referred  to  above  began 
to  appear  in  book  form. 

But  the  young  men  had  dropped  the  pen  to 
grasp  the  sword,  and  the  men  who  wrote  were, 
for  the  most  part,  well  advanced  in  years. 
Many  of  them,  it  is  true,  were  men  of  high  stand- 
ing, whom  France  had  learned  to  regard  as  the 
intellectual  leaders  of  the  day;  but  the  fact  re- 
mains that  their  books,  in  spite  of  their  beauty 
and  stirring  eloquence,  are  not  directly  repre- 
sentative of  that  young  France  which  was  at 
grips  with  the  enemy ;  and,  as  time  passes,  the 
glory  of  those  first  productions  will  fade  before 
that  of  the  more  authentic  works  of  the  actual 
fighters. 

Nevertheless,  those  early  books  recorded  the 
pulse  of  France  during  the  first  weeks  of  the 
6 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

world-tragedy,    and   for  that    reason,    some    of 
them,  at  least,  deserve  to  be  recalled  here. 

From  the  very  beginning",  Henri  Lavedan  suc- 
ceeded in  giving  a  very  lofty  tone  to  his  weekly 
articles  in  V Illustration.  The  re-issue  of  those 
articles  in  book  form  under  the  title  of  Les 
Grandes  Heures,  will  remain  the  best  expres- 
sion of  that  rousing  and  cementing  of  the  na- 
tional spirit  which  every  one  now  calls  I'Union 
Sacree.  In  most  other  articles,  one  hears  much 
more  often  the  harsh  strains  of  intense  an- 
ger and  of  satire  directed  against  Germany, 
than  the  harmony  of  the  epic  song  of  France's 
heroism. 

The  titles  of  the  following  books  give  a  very 
clear  idea  of  the  nature  of  their  contents. 
Pierre  Loti,  La  Grande  Barharie  (1915),  La 
Hyene  Enragee  (1916),  Quelques  Aspects  du 
Vertige  Mondial  (1917),  and  L'Horreur  Alle- 
mande  (1918)  ;  Paul  Margueritte  (author  of 
TJne  Epoque),  Contre  les  Barhares  (1915),  and 
later,  L'Immense  Effort  (1915-16)  ;  Jean  Aic- 
ard,  Des  Oris  dans  la  Melee  (1915) ;  Jean  Riche- 
pin.  Prose  de  Guerre  (1915)  ;  Mme.  Juliette 
Adam  (the  famous  editor  of  the  Nouvelle  Revue, 
who  boasts  that  she  has  never  accepted  the  treaty 
of  Frankfort),  L'Heure  Vengeresse  des  Crimes 
7 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Bismarkiens  (1915).  Paul  Adam,  Dans  I'Air 
qui  tremble  (1915),  and  later.  La  Terre  qui 
tonne  (1917)  ;  to  which  may  be  added  Peladan's 
L'Allemagne  devant  I'Humanite  and  Le  Devoir 
des  Civilises  (1915),  with  its,  at  times,  brilliantly- 
eloquent  anathemas ;  and  also  two  more  objective 
works  which  tell  the  story  of  the  German  atroci- 
ties in  the  previous  war:  General  Canonge's  His- 
toire  de  VInvasion  AUemande  en  1870-71,  and 
Gabriel  Langlois's  L'Allemagne  Barhare.  This 
latter  book  contains  a  remarkable  chapter  relat- 
ing how  the  anthropologist,  Quatrefages,  had  re- 
fused to  believe  the  reports  of  German  barbari- 
ties, until  he  saw  the  enemy  stupidlj^  attempting 
to  destroy  the  magnificent  scientific  collections 
of  the  Museum  in  Paris. 

Even  philosophical  minds  could  not  remain 
calm  in  that  hour  of  exaltation.  In  a  lecture  be- 
fore the  Academic  des  Sciences  Morales  et  Pol- 
itiques  on  September  14th,  1914,  Bergson  de- 
nounces the  philosophers  of  Germany  as  aiders 
and  abettors  in  the  development  of  the  ferocious 
war  organization  of  that  country.  Germany's 
philosophy  he  regards  as  "only  the  transposi- 
tion in  terms  of  the  intellect,  of  her  brutality, 
her  greed,  and  vices."  Neither  is  Anatple 
France  quite  free  from  passion,  although  his 
8 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

style  makes  acceptable  every  page  of  his  Sur  la 
Voie  Glorieuse,  and  Ce  que  disent  nos  Morts. 
Another  French  "sage,"  Remy  de  Gourmont, 
calls  his  volume  of  essays  Pendant  I'Orage,  and 
a  second  volume,  published  after  his  death  in 
1915,  bears  the  title  of  Dans  la  Tourmente. 

Among  the  books  ill  which  the  impeachment 
of  Germany  plays  so  great  a  part,  there  are  some 
which  are  particularly  moving  because  we  know 
that  their  authors  have  suffered  more  than 
others.  We  refer  to  the  books  of  Belgian  and 
Alsatian  writers,  such  as  Maeterlinck's  Debris  de 
la  Guerre,  and  Verhaeren's  La  Belgique  Sang- 
lante  and  Parmi  les  Cendres.  To  this  class  also 
belong  Pierre  Nothomb's  Les  Barharcs  en  Bel- 
gique (first  published  in  the  Revue  des  Deux 
Mondes),  and  the  works  of  I'Abbe  Wetterle,  the 
distinguished  and  courageous  representative  of 
Alsace-Lorraine  in  the  Reichstag  in  pre-war  days. 
We  commend  to  the  reader 's  attention  his  Propos 
de  Guerre, — the  second  volume  of  which  is  in- 
spired by  stinging  satire, — his  VAllemagne  qiCon 
voyait  et  celle  qu'on  ne  voyait  pas,  and,  of 
course,  his  Ce  qu'etait  I' Alsace-Lorraine  et  ce 
qu'elle  sera  (1915). 

It  is  not  our  intention  to  dwell  at  length  on 
this  emotional  literature  although  it  was  fully 
9 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

justified  by  the  circumstances.  We  wish,  how- 
ever, to  assign  it  an  honorable,  though  small 
place  in  the  literature  of  the  war ;  this,  we  can- 
not do  better  than  by  quoting  a  very  short  ex- 
tract from  the  Preface  of  Maeterlinck's  Debris 
de  la  Guerre.  The  few  sentences  express  the 
spirit  of  all  the  books  above  mentioned ;  they  do 
so  in  the  words  of  one,  who,  more  than  any 
other,  has  a  right  to  speak,  not  only  because  he 
is  a  Belgian,  but  also  because, — as  he  himself  re- 
marks,— he  had  been  until  then  conspicuously 
free  from  any  harshness  or  ill-feeling  towards  his 
fellow  men:  "The  reader  will  find,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  work  of  one  who  has  hitherto 
abused  no  man,  words  of  hatred  and  of  maledic- 
tion. I  would  gladly  have  left  those  words  un- 
said ...  I  have  been  forced  to  utter  them,  and 
I  am  as  much  surprised  as  I  am  maddened  at 
what  I  have  been  constrained  to  say  by  the 
force  of  events  and  of  truth.  .  .  .  There  are 
crimes  which  obliterate  the  past  and  close  the 
future.  In  eschewing  hatred,  I  would  have 
shown  myself  a  traitor  to  love.  I  tried  to  lift 
myself  above  the  fray;  but  the  higher  I  rose, 
the  more  clearly  did  I  see  the  madness  and  the 
horror  of  it,  the  justice  of  our  cause  and  the 
infamy  of  the  others'.  7^  is  possible  that  some 
10 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

day,  when  time  has  dulled  the  memory  and  re- 
stored the  ruins,  wise  men  will  tell  us  that  we 
are  mistaken,  that  our  standpoint  was  not  lofty 
enough,  that  everything  can  be  explained  and 
forgiven  and  that  we  must  make  an  effort  to 
understand;  hut  they  will  say  so  only  because 
what  we  know  has  been  forgotten,  and  what  we 
behold  has  not  been  seen." 

Two  other  writers  who  have  also  echoed  the 
emotions  of  the  war,  deserve  special  mention, 
because,  being  younger  than  those  whom  we  have 
already  discussed,  they  can  be  considered  as 
actually  speaking  for  the  war  generation,  and 
also  because,  for  quite  a  number  of  years,  they 
had  been  regarded  as  "leaders"  of  young 
France.  The  first  is  Maurice  Barres,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  French  Academy  and  of  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies,  and  the  President  of  the  Ligue  des 
Patriotes.  His  almost  daily  articles  in  the  Echo 
de  Paris  were,  during  the  first  weeks  of  the  war, 
a  magnificent  inspiration  to  the  French  people, 
and  fully  justify  the  general  title  under  which 
the}''  were  re-issued  in  a  series  of  volumes : 
L'Ame  Frangaise  et  la  Guerre.  The  first  vol- 
ume of  the  series,  L'Union  Sacree,  takes  us  from 
July  12th  to  October  31st,  1914,  describes  the 
11 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

political  situation  on  the  eve  of  the  war,  the 
great  retreat,  and  the  battle  of  the  Mame;  the 
second  volume,  Les  Saints  de  la  France,  takes  us 
to  the  end  of  the  year  1914,  and  tells  the  story 
of  the  battles  in  Flanders  and  of  the  descent 
into  the  trenches.  The  other  volumes  are:  La 
Croix  de  Guerre,  Amities  des  Tranchees,  Voy- 
ages de  Lorraine  et  d'Artois,  Pour  les  Mutiles, 
Le  Suffrage  des  Morts.  One  of  the  finest  utter- 
ances of  Barres  is  the  lecture  (Les  Traits  eternels 
de  la  France)  which  he  delivered  in  London,  on 
July  12th,  1916,  to  the  members  of  the  British 
Academy,  and  in  which  he  drew  some  very  strik- 
ing parallels  between  the  French  Knights  of  the 
Middle  Ages  who  fought  for  Christendom  and 
for  the  Church,  and  the  modem  heroes  who  are 
fighting,  in  the  same  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  to 
save  a  civilization  in  which  love,  and  not  vio- 
lence, is  triumphant.^ 

During  the  third  year  of  the  war,  Barres 
wrote,  in  addition  to  his  chronicle  of  the  war, 
one  of  the  most  moving  books  imaginable  on  the 
religion  of  the   Soldier:    Les  Families  Spirit- 

1  An  American  edition,  with  excellent  notes,  was  pre- 
pared by  F.  Baldensperger  and  issued  by  the  Yale  Press 
at  the  end  of  1918.  There  is  also  an  English  translation 
by  Miss  Corwin  (Yale  Press).  The  original  title  of  the 
lecture  was:  Le  Blason  de  la  France,  ou  ses  Traits  eter- 
nels dans  cette  Guerre  et  les  vieilles  Epopees. 
12 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

uelles  de  la  France  (this  work  will  be  referred 
to  again  later)  ;  and,  in  the  fourth  year  a  smaller 
one,  De  la  Sympathie  a  la  Fraternite  des  Amies, 
Les  Etais-Unis  dans  lu  Guerre  (Bibl.  France- 
Amerique). 

The  second  of  those  younger  authors  is  Andre 
Suares:  a  man  possessed  of  a  genius  akin  to 
that  of  Charles  Peguy.  While  Peguy  was  pour- 
ing out  his  soul  in  fiery  prose  in  the  Cahiers  de 
la  Quinzaine,  Suares  was,  since  1909,  the  lead- 
ing spirit  of  the  Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise;  his 
stirring,  vigorous,  mystic  style,  full  of  striking, 
at  time,s  apocalyptic,  images,  was  a  perfect  instru- 
ment with  which  to  arouse  not  only  the  intel- 
lectual youth,  but  the  whole  of  France.  His  ar- 
ticles have  been  collected  under  the  general  title 
of  Commentaires  sur  la  Guerre  des  Bodies.  In 
the  first  volume,  Nous  et  Eux,  he  shows  in  clear 
definite  formulas,  how  fundamentally,  how  "ra- 
cially" different  are  the  French  and  the  Ger- 
man minds.  In  the  second  volume,  C'est  la 
Guerre,  he  returns  to  his  assertion  of  a  real  dif- 
ference of  "race,"  and  describes  the  war  as  a 
"zoological"  contest.  He  can  admit  of  no  neu- 
trals in  this  struggle  between  the  powers  of 
darkness  and  those  of  light.  One  of  the  best  of 
his  books  is  Ceux  de  Verdun  (1916,  138  pp.),  in 
13 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

which  he  pauses,  for  a  moment,  in  his  virulent 
attacks  upon  Germany  to  proclaim  the  glory  of 
the  heroes  of  France.  He  relates  the  great  epic 
of  Verdun  in  a  terse,  lapidary  style,  reminiscent 
of  the  noblest  passages  in  the  ancient  Hebrew 
Prophets.  The  power  of  his  beautiful  rhythmi- 
cal prose  is  irresistible. 

But  the  intense  patriotism  of  Snares  does  not 
prevent  him  from  being  at  the  same  time  a 
thinker  of  remarkable  independence  of  judg- 
ment. He  reminds  us  at  times  of  the  late  Remy 
de  Gourmont.  He  has  published,  from  time  to 
time,  in  the  elegant  issues  of  the  Nouvelle  Revue 
Frangaise,  pamphlets  which  are  stimulating  to 
an  extraordinary  degree.  And  Snares  has  the 
courage  of  his  convictions.  A  man  must  be  bold 
indeed,  who  dares  to  publish,  while  France  is  at 
war  with  Germany,  sentiments  like  those  which 
we  quote  below,  and  to  which  he  gave  expression 
in  the  course  of  a  discussion  on  the  advisability 
of  discontinuing  the  study  of  Kant.  His  asser- 
tion that  Kant  is  Cartesian,  that  he  has  devel- 
oped to  their  fullest  extent  the  principles  of  Des- 
cartes, we  must  leave  to  the  judgment  of  meta- 
physicians; but  the  ethics  of  K^nt,  and  his  pol- 
itics are  of  very''  general  interest  to-day.  In  Re- 
marques  IX,  (December,  1918)  Suares  says  in 
14 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

that  connection:  "To  represent  that  great  inde- 
pendent mind  as  the  type  of  Prussianism,  to 
make  of  him  the  philosopher  of  the  German 
State,  is  an  act  of  deliberate  bad  faith ;  or,  to  put 
it  more  plainly,  it  is  a  lie. 

"I  find  the  answer  to  that  lie  in  the  first  of  the 
Articles,  where  Kant  has  written :  '  The  political 
constitution  of  each  state  must  be  republican.' 
What  a  very  Prussian  trait  that  is,  to  be  sure ! 
And  here  is  another:  Kant  is  blaming  the  gov- 
ernment of  kings  for  the  barbarities  of  war  and 
he  writes :  'the  Sovereign  glories  in  his  power  to 
dispose  according  to  his  fancy,  and  without  tak- 
ing any  great  personal  risks,  of  the  lives  of  sev- 
eral thousands  of  men  who  are  ever  ready  to  sac- 
rifice themselves  for  a  cause  which  is  no  concern 
of  theirs. '  "  And  then  Snares,  turning  on  one  of 
his  own  countrjTnen,  continues:  "I  know  a 
Prussian  who  is  also  a  Roman  Catholic ;  a  feudal- 
istic  Prussian ;  a  Prussian  as  to  his  ethics ;  a 
Prussian  by  his  royalist  and  absolutist  politics; 
a  Prussian  in  his  views  of  peace  and  of  war; 
whose  thoughts  are  Prussianly  antagonistic  to 
the  Republic,  to  the  rights  of  men  and  to  the 
freedom  of  thought ;  and  who  expresses  those 
thoughts  in  the  wery  terms  of  Moltke  and  of  the 
German  General  Headquarters.  That  man  is 
15 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Joseph  de  Maistre.  Kant  is  the  very  antithesis 
of  de  Maistre.  Kant  represents  the  spirit  of 
eighteenth  century  France  and  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. De  Maistre  is  already  dead  'up  to  his 
throat.'  The  ax  is  poised  above  his  head  as 
above  the  thick  nape  of  Berlin ;  but  the  spirit  of 
Kant  still  lives. ' ' 

*         *         * 

Before  bringing  this  chapter  to  a  close,  we 
wish  to  speak  of  two  men  upon  whom  the  war 
has  produced  very  contrary  effects:  Gustave 
Herve  and  Romain  Rolland.  Before  the  war, 
Herve  had  preached  with  so  much  vehemence  the 
doctrines  of  socialism,  internationalism  and  anti- 
militarism,  that  he  had  been  arrested  on  a  charge 
of  treason,  tried  and  condemned  to  prison.^ 
Very  soon,  however,  after  the  outbreak  of  the 
war,  he  acknowledged  with  a  candor  which  does 
him  honor,  that  he  had  been  mistaken.  Herve 
is  a  politician,  but  he  is  nevertheless  upright  and 
sincere,  and  a  stranger  to  the  subtleties  of  polit- 
ical arrivistes.  He  has  turned  with  burning  in- 
dignation against  the  German  socialists  who  have 

2  It  was  Herve  -vvho,  in  1015,  wrote  that  famous  book 
Leur  Patrie  which  assailed  tlie  idea  of  love  for  one  conn- 
try  only,  and  which  called  forth  Pe^y's  beautiful  Xotre 
Patrie. — A  good  article  on  Herve  will  be  found  in  Andre 
Maurel's  Six  Ecrivains  de  la  Guerre  (Paris,  1917),  pp. 
73-96. 

16 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

shown  themselves  to  be  false  brethren.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  war  he  has  published  three 
books, — all  of  them  reprints  of  his  articles, — un- 
der the  titles  of  Apres  la  Marne,^  La  Patrie  en 
Danger,  and  La  Muraille.  In  this  last  book,  he 
preaches  the  gospel  of  "France"  with  all  the 
conviction  and  eloquence  which  formally  charac- 
terized his  preaching  of  the  gospel  of  "Human- 
ity." His  newspaper  which,  before  the  war,  was 
called  La  Guerre  Sociale,  has,  since  1914,  been 
known  as  La  Victoire^ 

As  for  Romain  Holland,  he  has  moved  in  a 
direction  opposed  to  that  of  Herve.  In  Jean 
Christ ophe  he  had  judged  with  some  severity  the 
materialism,  lack  of  taste,  and  industrialism  of 

3  In  this  first  book,  composed  of  articles  which  ap- 
peared between  November,  1914,  and  February,  1915,  the 
contrast  with  his  former  writings  already  comes  out  very 
strikinfily.  See  especially  the  articles  Jusqu'au  hout 
(pp.  44^7),  A  Sudekum,  f^ocialiste  du  Kaiser  (pp. 
294-297),  and  Le  Pot  aux  Roses  (pp.  310-315).  The 
titles  of  those  articles  indicate  the  spirit  in  which  they 
were  written. 

4  Herve  had  also  written,  some  years  before,  a  very 
original  Histoire  de  France  pour  les  Grands  (1904)  in 
which  he  avoided  as  much  as  possible  mentioning  the 
names  of  kings  and  of  battles,  because  civilization  has 
DO  greater  interest  in  kings  than  in  any  other  people,  and 
because  wars,  far  from  furthering  the  progress  of  civ- 
ilization, usually  sot  it  back.  A  number  of  teachers  with 
socialist  leanings  adopted  the  book  in  their  classes,  but 
the  government  quickly  took  action,  forbidding  the  use 
of  it  in  any  school  within  the  jurisdiction  of  the  French 
Republic. 

17 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Germany;  Jean  Christoplie  was  obliged  to  come 
to  France  to  find  an  atmosphere  congenial  to  his 
artistic  temperament.  It  is  true  that  he  had  not 
found  in  the  conventional  artistic  milieus  of 
Paris,  any  response  to  genuine  art ;  but  his  hopes 
were  with  the  people  of  France,  the  people  who 
had  produced  Joan  of  Arc  .  .  .  people  of  such 
sterling  moral  qualities  were  to  be  found  only 
west  of  the  Rhine.  When  the  war  broke  out, 
Rolland  was  shocked  by  the  passionate  outcry 
against  Germany  which  spontaneously  arose  in 
every  quarter  of  the  civilized  world.  He  tried 
to  retain  his  self-possession,  but  his  too  great 
anxiety  to  remain  impartial  led  him  to  make 
such  great  concessions  to  the  German  point  of 
view,  that  he  soon  appeared  to  many  of  his  coun- 
trymen as  a  traitor  to  their  cause.  Even  the 
Manifesto  of  the  ninety-three  German  intellec- 
tuals, in  which,  deliberately  or  unintentionally, 
many  facts  damaging  to  Germany  were  passed 
over  in  silence,  did  not  induce  him  to  change  his 
attitude;  nor  was  he  affected  by  the  failure  of 
the  appeal  which  he  addressed  through  Gerhard 
Hauptmann  to  the  German  men  of  letters;  he 
still  continued,  after  that,  to  sit  in  judgment 
upon  the  contending  parties.  So  convinced  was 
he  of  the  correctness  of  his  attitude,  that  in  his 
18 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

Au-dessus  de  la  Melee  (1915-16)  he  asks  men  of 
unprejudiced  minds  to  pronounce  between  him 
and  his  opponents. 

Few  publications  have  stirred  up  more  resent- 
ment in  France,  or  created  more  misunderstand- 
ing, than  that  book.  The  French  people  cannot 
understand  how  it  is  that  Rolland  fails  to  under- 
stand. And,  indeed,  it  is  strange  that  so  intelli- 
gent a  man  should  remain  impervious  to  all  ar- 
guments and  explanations;  for  he  pays  not  the 
slightest  attention  to  them;  he  simply  ignores 
them  and  continues  to  re-state, — eloquently 
enough,  it  must  be  admitted, — the  views  which 
he  has  held  since  the  beginning  of  the  war.  It 
seems  as  if  the  enormous  success  of  Jean  Chris- 
tophe  had  to  some  extent  impaired  his  judgment, 
and  as  if  he  accepted  in  all  seriousness  the  flat- 
tering assurance  of  some  of  his  disciples,  that  he 
needs  only  to  speak  and  the  whole  world  will  ac- 
cept his  words  as  gospel. 

He  did  not  or  would  not  realize  that  it  lay  as 
little  in  the  power  of  the  French  people,  as  in 
that  of  the  Christian  socialists  or  of  the  intellec- 
tual elite  or  of  any  one  else,  to  put  a  stop  to  the 
fighting ;  unless,  indeed,  France  was  willing  to 
yield,  body  and  soul,  to  Germany.  After  the 
first  battle  of  the  ]\rarne,  from  Geneva  (where  he 
19 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

has  lived  all  through  the  war)  Rolland  took  it 
for  granted  that  everything  was  over.  On  Sep- 
tembei"  15th,  in  the  article  which  gives  the  vol- 
ume its  title,  and  which  has  so  endeared  him  to 
the  pacifists,  he  exclaimed  in  terms  astonish- 
ingly naive :  "Vn  grand  peuple  ne  se  venge  pas, 
il  retahlit  le  droit":  a  great  nation  does  not  seek 
revenge,  it  reestablishes  Right — as  if  that  was 
not  exactly  what  France  was  trying  to  do  in 
keeping  up  the  fight ;  as  if  France,  and  England, 
and,  later,  America,  had  not  accepted  the  long, 
wretched  struggle  which  lasted  four  miserable 
years,  precisely  in  order  to  make  possible  that 
''Haute  Cour  Morale,"  for  which  the  heart  of 
Romain  Rolland  was  yearning  .  .  .  away  from 
his  country ! 

One  cannot  deny,  of  course,  the  lofty  inspira- 
tion of  the  author  of  Au-dessus  de  la  Melee,  but 
neither  can  one  close  one's  eyes  to  his  remark- 
able stubbornness.  More  than  any  of  his  oppon- 
ents whom  he  constantly  upbraids  for  their  lack 
of  openmindedness,  he  deserves  the  reproach  of 
being  prejudiced.  He  frequently  commences  his 
articles  with  abuse  of  Germany,  superabundant 
sympathy  for  the  French  and  very  high  praise 
of  their  splendid  courage  and  noble  behavior; 
and  then  continues:  "But  .  .  ." — that  exasper- 
20 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

ating  hut,  which  means:  "Now  that  I  have 
patted  you  «n  the  back,  listen  to  me  who  am  able 
to  dispense  words  of  supreme  wisdom."  His 
insistence  on  his  point  of  view  becomes,  at  times, 
intolerable,  and  creeps  into  the  very  titles  of  his 
articles:  Inter  Arma  Caritas;  Au  Peuple  qiM 
souffre  pour  la  Justice;  Notre  Prochain,  I'En- 
nemi;  etc. 

Among  the  answers  to  Rolland,  two  of  the 
most  striking  are  Verhaeren's  which  appeared 
in  the  Revue  de  Paris  and  which  can  be  summar- 
ized in  his  o^\Ti  words:  "One  must  not  try  to 
hold  a  scale  when  the  enemy  is  brandishing  a 
sword";  and  the  forceful  article  by  Benda  in 
V Opinion  ^  in  which  this  writer  says:  "But  you 
exaggerate,  Sir,  when  you  say  that  Justice  must 
be  free  from  passion.  Passion  for  the  just 
cause,  she  must  have."  The  sentiments  of  the 
Catholics  were  expressed  by  H.  Massis  in  his 
pamphlet  Rolland  contre.  la  France.  See  also 
Paul  Hyacinthe-Loyson 's  Etes-vous  Neutre  de- 
vant  le  Crime?  If  one  wishes  to  have  also  a 
poet's  reaction,  one  will  find  it  in  the  Sonate  oon- 
tre  Romain  Rolland,  by  Jean  Fontaine-Vive,  in 
the  volume  Jeunesse  ardent e,  quoted  below. 

5  Benda's  article  is  to  be  found  in  his  Sentiments  de 
Critias  (1917),  to  which  we  shall  refer  again  later. 
21 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

But  the  most  representative  comments  on  Rol- 
land's  book  are  found  in  G.  A.  Henches'  A 
I'Ecole  de  la  Guerre  (1918).  Commandant 
Henches  kept  one  of  the  best  diaries  of  the  war; 
Few  soldiers  have  felt  more  keenly  than  he  the 
horrors  of  the  great  tragedy;  few  have  kept 
themselves  so  completely  under  control.  And 
yet,  this  man  who  is  generally  so  moderate  even 
when  referring  to  the  Germans,  is  very  severe 
toward  Rolland.  He  denies  him  any  right  to 
speak.  Holland  may  be  right,  but  Rolland  has 
no  voice  in  the  matter,  because,  even  if  he  is 
right,  he  has  not  reached  his  conclusions  by 
means  of  valid  premisses :  Rolland  has  not  seen 
the  war.  He  is  like  a  man  who,  firing  a  rifle  for 
the  first  time,  would  happen,  by  some  chance,  to 
make  a  bull's  eye.  That  success  would  not  make 
a  shooter  of  him ;  and  his  claim  to  dogmatize  on 
matters  of  shooting  would  not  be  admissible. 
The  following  are  a  few  quotations  from 
Henches:  "Rolland  seems  to  me  to  be  giving 
himself  airs  of  moral  superiority  and  of  de- 
tachment which  are  distinctly  out  of  place  in 
present  circumstances.  .  .  .  After  the  war,  more 
than  half  the  Germans, — if  they  are  definitely 
beaten, — will  assert  that  they  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  crimes ;  but,  if  by  any  chance, 
22 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

they  had  been  victorious,  how  many,  think  you, 
would  have  protested  ?  .  .  .  The  thoughts  of  Ro- 
main  Rolland,  even  if  they  be  true,  carry  no  more 
weight  than  a  ribbon  or  a  trinket.  You  must 
risk  your  life  in  times  like  these,  to  have  a  right 
to  uphold  an  idea,  and  those  who  have  risked 
only  their  position,  or  their  fortune,  or  who 
strive  after  notoriety,  we  regard  as  noxious.  .  .  . 
Hatred  we  must  have :  hatred  of  self-seekers,  ha- 
tred of  liars,  hatred  of  profiteers  of  every  kind. 
It  is  easy,  from  a  safe  retreat,  to  utter  words  of 
kindness.  But  if  Romain  Rolland  had  witnessed 
the  exodus  of  women  and  children  on  certain 
September  evenings  in  1914;  if  he  lived,  as  we 
do,  among  graves,  he  would  be  ashamed  that  he 
had  dared  to  open  his  mouth.  It  may  be  that 
his  ideas  do  not  differ  from  our  own,  he  is  none 
the  less  guilty.  We  have  a  right  to  speak,  he 
has  not.  Only  those  have  a  right  to  forgive 
who  have  suffered." 

Commandant  Henches  was  killed  in  action. 

After  some  time  the  public  had  ceased  to  pay 
any  attention  whatsoever  to  Rolland. 
* 

The  attitude  of  Rolland  was  shared  by  an  extremely 
small  minority  in  France  during:  the  war,  and  since 
the  cessation  of  hostilities  things  have  not  changed 
23 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

much.  There  is,  howe'ser,  a  manifesto  of  the  "intel- 
lectuels  combattants  frangais  aux  intellectuels  com- 
battants  du  monde^'  which  appeared  in  Le  Cri  du 
Midi  and  was  reproduced  without  comment  in  the 
Mercure  de  France,  in  April,  1919,  and  from  which 
we  quote  the  following  extracts:  "Our  hands  which 
in  spite  of  us  were  steeped  in  blood,  are  to-day  eager 
to  take  up,  in  hearty  cooperation  with  you  the  task 
of  world  reconstruction.  .  .  .  The  din  of  battle  has 
never  robbed  our  minds  of  their  serenity.  .  .  .  Fight- 
ing intellectuals  of  those  countries  which  yesterday 
were  at  war,  we  are  impatient  to  renew  with  you 
intellectual  and  friendly  relations.  Intellectuals  of 
the  world,  we  know  that  those  of  you  who  share  our 
sentiments  are  numberless;  we  know  that  for  fifty 
months  you  have  dragged  out,  behind  the  appear- 
ance of  serene  wisdom,  existences  as  miserable  as 
those  of  guilty  souls.  It  behooves  us  to  set  to  you 
the  solemn  and  good  example  of  wise  conduct.  .  .  . 
We  alone  in  the  clash  of  fire  and  steel  have  had  the 
courage  to  retain  our  faith  in  the  illuminating  and 
civilizing  power  of  reason." 

Rolland,  who  had  distinctly  not  been  a  "combat- 
tant,"  co.uld.  not  sign  this  document ;  the  chief  name 
at  the  bottom  of  it  is  that  of  Barbusse,  the  author 
of  Le  Feu,  of  which  we  shall  speak  presently.  The 
other  eleven  are  men  of  much  lesser  note.  In  July, 
however,  Rolland  wrote  a  manifesto  himself,  in  the 
very  same  spirit,  and  in  which  he  seems  as  far  as 
ever  from  realizing  the  concrete  problems  which  the 
world  has  to  face.  He  speaks  of  the  "alliances  hu- 
miliantes  de  Vesprit,"  of  the  duty  of  the  intellectuals 
24 


EMOTIONAL  REACTION 

to  "point  to  the  polar  star  in  the  turmoil  of  dark 
passions,"  "montrer  I'etoile  polaire  au  milieu  du 
tourbillon  des  passions  dans  la  nuit,"  and  then  hails 
the  People  of  the  future  "one,  universal,  suffer- 
ing, stumbling  but  rising  again,"  "unique,  universel, 
qui  souffre,  qui  tumbe  et  se  releve."  .  .  .  This  piece  of 
oratory  lias  elicited  a  counter-manifesto  which  was 
published  in  the  Figaro  of  July  19  by  a  group  of 
patriotic  writers,  among  whom  was  H.  Massis  (see 
our  chapter  III,  below,  on  Philosophy  during  the 
Great  War).  They  called  it  "Pour  le  Parti  de  Vln- 
telligetice" — distinguishing  thus  between  themselves 
and  the  "intelleetuels"  whose  leanmgs  are  towards  in- 
ternationalism and  perhaps  even  towards  Prussian- 
fsni. 

They  want  to  build  the  future  on  distinctly  na- 
tional ideas,  counting  among  these  a  return  to  the 
leadership  of  the  Catholic  Church.  This  reply  was 
signed  not  only  by  nationalistic  and  catholic  writers, 
as  Massis,  Bourget  and  Francis  Jammes,  but  also  by 
men  like  Henri  Gheon  and  Binet-Valmer.  All  these 
discussions  when  so  much  action  is  needed  are  some- 
what disconcerting. 

It  may  be  interesting  to  recall  here  another  mani- 
festo, that  written  by  Gerhard  Hauptniann,  in  Ger- 
many, who  had  refused  ruthlessly  to  take  the  olive 
branch  extended  to  him  by  Romain  Rolland  in  1914. 
In  1918,  shortly  after  the  armistice,  his  tone  had 
changed;  "A  terrible  experience,"  he  says,  "has 
proved  to  us  that  hatred  does  not  pay.  .  .  .  Relent- 
lessly and  awfully,  God's  designs  have  triumphed 
over  those  of  men.  .  .  .  For  a  thousand  years,  the 
25 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OE  THE  GREAT  WAR 

German  nation  has  lived  through  no  experience  com- 
parable to  that  of  these  latter  days."  .  .  . 

For  further  data  relative  to  the  RoUand  contro- 
versy, cf.  Vic,  Litterature  de  la  Guerre,  i.  349-351. 


CHAPTER  II 

PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION— COMMENCING 
ABOUT  THE  SPRING  OF  1915 

Some  Soldier  Types  in  "War  No\^ls 

We  now  come  to  those  books  which  relate 
much  more  objectively  than  those  referred  to 
previously,  the  facts  connected  directly  or  indi- 
rectly with  the  prosecution  of  the  war. 

As  the  conflict  progressed  and  assumed  for- 
midable proportions,  changing  its  character  from 
that  of  a  war  of  nations  in  which  national  and 
political  aims  strove  for  mastery,  to  that  of  a 
world  war  in  which  great  human  principles  were 
involved,  it  was  both  inevitable  and  imperative 
that  the  lyric  and  epic  notes  should  die  down. 
In  the  spring  of  1915,  the  more  intelligent  had 
already  realized  how  helpless  are  strong  emo- 
tions to  solve  great  problems;  that  the  old 
"cliches"  had  served  their  purpose  and  that  it 
was  time  to  discard  them ;  what  the  seriousness 
of  the  hour  demanded  then  was  a  deep,  clear, 
practical,  sober  apprehension  of  the  realities  of 
the  hour. 

27 


FRENCH  LITELATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  most  immediate  interest,  of  course,  was 
focussed  on  the  soldiers  who  were  waging  the 
war.  Some  men  of  letters  soon  began  to  make 
use  of  what  had  been  for  many  years  the  most 
common  medium  of  art,  the  novel.  We  must, 
however,  beg  leave  to  draw  here  a  sharp  dis- 
tinction between  two  kinds  of  novels  dealing 
with  the  war. 

The  one  we  will  call  War-Novel  proper,  in 
which  the  authors  work  up  documents  or  per- 
sonal experiences  in  order  to  make  us  see  more 
deeply  the  significance  of  war  itself ;  they  apply 
the  realistic  theory  of  art  which  has  been  so  well 
defined  in  Maupassant's  Preface  to  Pierre  et 
Jean;  their  aim  is  to  rearrange  facts  in  a  manner 
which  is  more  exact  perhaps  than  reality  but 
more  indicative  of  the  internal  order  of  things, 
and  with  a  view  to  bringing  out  more  convinc- 
ingly than  mere  contingencies  have  done,  some 
aspects  of  the  war  which  seem  to  them  worth 
emphasizing. 

The  other  we  will  call  War-Time-Novel;  it  is 
the  novel  in  which  the  war  has  been  used  merely 
as  a  background  for  some  storj-  not  necessarily 
connected  with  it.  And  of  course  it  cannot  be 
denied  that  war  offers  wonderfully  dramatic 
and  romanesque  situations ;  but  there  is  probably 
28 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

no  love  story,  no  tragedy,  no  idyll,  or  intrigue  of 
any  sort  which  absolutely  requires  war  as  a  back- 
ground ;  the  separation  of  lovers,  jealousies,  even 
the  Enoch  Arden  theme,  or  the  marriage  with  a 
man  who  has  become  a  cripple,  have  no  organic 
connection  with  war. 

We  are  not  concerned  for  the  present  with 
such  War-Time-Novels,  however  great  their  ar- 
tistic value  may  be  (they  will  be  dealt  with  at 
the  end  of  Part  II)  but  only  with  War-Novels 
proper. 

In  order  to  estimate  rightly  the  value  of  war- 
fiction  as  a  contribution  to  our  knowledge  of  the 
war,  two  facts  should  be  borne  in  mind :  the  first 
is  that  no  account  of  anj^  event  can  ever  be  alto- 
gether objective;  even  the  most  matter  of  fact 
war-diary  has  required  selection  (and  consequent 
rejection)  of  material,  in  its  composition,  and 
moreover  presents  that  material  from  the  stand- 
point peculiar  to  some  one  author;  that  selection 
and  that  standpoint  constitute  the  subjective  or 
fictional  element  in  the  work.  The  second  fact 
is  that  in  a  work  which  purports  to  represent 
and  to  explain  the  war,  the  element  of  fiction 
must  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  The  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  genres — War-novels  and 
29 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

War-diaries — thus  tends  to  disappear,  and  what- 
ever actual  fiction  there  is  in  war-novels  may  be 
legitimately  disregarded  in  estimating  their 
value.  Indeed  the  reading  public  makes  so  lit- 
tle of  that  distinction  that  it  very  easily  regards 
war-novels  as  war-recollections ;  and  very  rightly 
so  when  the  authors  have  had  personal  experi- 
ence of  the  facts  which  they  relate  either  on  the 
firing  line,  or  elsewhere. 

At  the  same  time,  since  the  authors  are  aim- 
ing at  giving  to  war  novels  as  much  aesthetic 
force  and  unity  as  possible — ^which  they  accom- 
plish by  developing  or  condensing,  or  at  any  rate 
re-focussing  such  episodes  as  they  have  espe- 
cially selected — they  must,  if  they  are  successful, 
produce  something  which  from  an  artistic  stand- 
point is  superior  to  the  mere  chronological  rec- 
ord of  war  episodes  in  memoirs  and  recollections. 
*         *         * 

Three  War-novels  stand  out  as  the  best  at- 
tempts to  depict  soldier  types  of  the  Great  War. 
All  three  have  been  widely  read. 

The  first  is  Rene  Benjamin's  Gaspard  (1915).^ 
As  a  literary  product,  this  book  will  hold  its 
own,  not  only  against  the  other  more  recent  war 
books,  but  long  after  the  war.     Gaspard  will  re- 

1  It  was  awarded  the  Prix  Goncourt  for  1915,  and  the 
Grand  Prix  du  roman,  by  the  French  Academy  in  1916. 
30 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

main  a  type  in  French  literature,  like  Moliere's 
Seapin,  Daudet's  Tartarin,  Hugo's  Gavroche,  or 
Aicard's  Maurin  des  Maures.  Indeed,  the  name 
' '  Gaspard ' '  has  already  passed  into  the  language 
to  designate  the  intelligent,  alert  man  of  the  peo- 
ple of  France,  or  rather  of  Paris,  the  man  of 
perfectl}^  unsophisticated  mind,  who  has  a  genius 
for  acting  kindly,  is  always  ready  to  help,  is  do- 
ing, without  any  trace  of  self-consciousness,  the 
most  beautiful  things;  he  is  picturesque  in 
speech,  droll  in  manner,  sound  in  mind  as  a  red 
apple,  transparent  as  glass,  true  as  steel.  This 
is  the  French  soldier  which  the  general  public, 
especially  abroad,  likes  to  imagine — and  per- 
fectly legitimately;  Gaspards  are  more  likely  to 
be  found  in  the  French  army  than  elsewhere,  al- 
though nobody  would  think  that  all  French  sol- 
diers are  Gaspards.^ 

The  second  book  is  Bourru,  soldat  de  Vau- 
^   quois^   (1916)   by  Jean  des  Vignes  Rouges.     It 

2  In  1916,  Benjamin  published  another  book,  Sous  le 
del  de  France,  and  more  recently  a  third:  Le  Major 
Pipe  et  son  Pere  which  is  discussed  further  on  in  this 
same  chapter,  and  since  the  war  still  another.  Grand- 
goujon   (1919). 

3  Vauquois,  a  promontory,  like  a  sentry  between  Ver- 
d\in  and  the  Forest  of  the  Argonne,  the  only  sector  where 
the  French,  in  spite  of  the  most  vicious  attacks  of  the 
Germans,  never  withdrew  one  inch. 

The  book  was  crowned  bv  the  French  Academy. 
31 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

corresponds  to  the  second  period  of  the  war, 
when  the  hell  of  the  trenches  rendered  the  life 
of  the  soldier  much  harder  and  stripped  war  of 
much  of  the  heroi-romanesque  which  would  oth- 
erwise, to  some  extent,  extenuate  its  horrors.  Of 
course,  in  Oaspard  we  had  not  really  much  of 
war  itself;  we  had  the  mobilization  period,  and 
just  two  episodes  on  the  front;  after  the  first, 
the  wounding,  nursing,  and  convalescence  of 
Gaspard;  after  the  second,  his  return  home  as  a 
cripple.  Gaspard  was  still  a  civilian,  accident- 
ally drawn  into  the  war,  but  who  had  kept  in  the 
service  his  attitude  of  everyday  life.  For 
Bourru,  civilian  life  is  a  dear  memory  only, 
he  has  become  a  soldier  through  and  through, 
and  very  few  pages  of  the  book  are  not  pictures 
of  war,  and  of  war  of  the  fiercest  kind  in  one 
of  the  worst  sectors  on  the  whole  battle  line. 
Bourru,  unlike  Gaspard,  the  quick-witted  shop- 
keeper of  Montmartre,  is  a  peasant  from  Bur- 
gundy. He  possesses  all  the  intelligence,  energy 
and  quietness  of  disposition  of  his  race,  but  lacks 
the  cheerfulness  of  Gaspard;  he  is  hourru  ("a 
grumbler"),  but  as  a  soldier  he  is  just  as  brave 
and  good  as  Gaspard;  and  perhaps  because  he 
has  not  that  cheerfulness  to  help  him  out  in  his 
trials  he  is  the  more  admirable  in  his  behavior. 
32 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Although  not  as  entertaining  as  Gaspard,  he  rep- 
resents probably  more  truly  the  average  fine  sol- 
dier of  France.* 

The  third  book  is  Barbusse  's  Le  Feu.^  It  pic- 
tures the  soldiers  in  the  trenches  when  the  third 
year  of  war  was  in  sight.  If  the  soldier  could 
still  be  courageous  in  facing  grim  reality,  no- 
body could  expect  of  him,  nobody,  indeed,  would 
accept  as  genuine,  the  everlasting  cheerfulness 
of  Gaspard;  to  expect  even  the  good-natured 
grumbling  of  Bourru  would  be  a  great  deal. 
And  indeed  Le  Feu  is  most  depressing  in  tone 
and  in  its  presentation  of  what  people  call  the 
most  realistic  descriptions  of  trench  warfare. 

Le  Feu  is  by  far  the  most-discussed  book  of 
the  war.  What  aroused  so  much  comment — 
praise  on  the  one  hand  and  criticism  on  the 

4  Some  very  interesting  information  is  given  in  the 
book  about  the  underground  warfare  carried  on  by  the 
sappers  and  miners  (for  which  topic  see  also  La  Guerre 
souterraine  by  Captain  Danrit).  Two  otlier  books  were 
published  in  1017  by  J.  dos  Vignes  Rouges:  L'Ame  des 
chefs,  and  a  novel :  Andr4  Rieti,  officier  de  France,  a  psy- 
chological study  of  a  young  "sous-lieutenant"  of  20,  a 
man  of  refinement,  a  poet,  who  knows  how  to  remain 
above  the  ugly  realities  of  the  war  while  in  the  war. 

Jean  des  Vignes  Rouges  is  the  nom  de  plume  of  Cap- 
tain Taboureau. 

5  Le  Feu  was  awarded  the  Prix  Goncourt  for  1916. 
When  the  war  ended,  in  November,  1918,  that  is  two 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  book,  230,000  copies  of 
it  had  been  sold. 

33 


FEENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

other — is  the  tone  of  the  book,  which  appears  to 
many  to  be  not  only  realistic  (which  would  be 
legitimate)  but  in  part  plainly  cynical.  There 
are  those  who  see  in  so  brutal  a  picture  a  sane, 
even  a  necessary  reaction  against  the  silly  opti- 
mism prevailing  in  many  quarters.  The  stupid 
representation  of  the  French  soldier  as  thor- 
oughly enjoying  life  in  the  trenches — as  eager 
for  nothing  save  to  die  for  his  country,  as  charg- 
ing the  enemy  always  in  a  state  of  sublime  exal- 
tation, or,  when  lying  wounded  in  the  hospital, 
as  burning  with  impatience  to  return  as  soon  as 
possible  to  sacrifice  whatever  limb  was  left  to  him 
— seemed  to  them  absurd,  unjust,  and  immoral. 
Thus  Barbusse,  they  would  argue,  was  fully  jus- 
tified even  in  overdrawing  the  picture  in  order 
to  counteract  such  misconceptions. 

But  there  are  those  on  the  other  hand  who  lay 
stress  on  another  aspect  of  the  problem.  The 
book  -came  out,  they  remark,  just  at  the  darkest 
period  of  the  war,  when  France  was  finding  it 
very  difficult  to  keep  up  the  spirits  of  her  chil- 
dren in  the  terrific  struggle.  It  was  therefore 
very  wrong,  in  such  an  hour,  to  speak  words  of 
discouragement.  It  is  not  right  to  tell  the  truth 
to  a  sick  man  when  the  truth  may  kill  him,  while 
34 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

mere  abstention  from  saying  anything  may  allow 
him  to  pull  through. 

Moreover,  Barbusse  has  been  charged  with 
producing  a  book  which  was  realistic  only  in  the 
sense  of  "shocking,"  but  not  in  the  sense  of 
"true."  An  army  composed  of  men  such  as  are 
described  in  Le  Feu  could  never  have  achieved 
what  the  French  army  did  achieve.  Further- 
more, the  squad  which  Barbusse  presents  in  his 
book  is  composed  entirely  of  unthinking  men,  not 
one  of  whom  is  capable  of  grasping  the  meaning 
of  the  struggle.*'  French  officers  and  soldiers 
have  repeatedly  protested  against  what  they  con- 
sider Barbusse 's  misrepresentations  of  the 
French  soldier;  and  they  surely  speak  with  au- 
thority. They  have  sometimes  characterized  the 
book  as  "criminal."  A  vigorous  protest  by 
Major  L.  C.  Elkenfelder,  an  Alsatian,  appeared 
in  the  Chicago  Tribune  and  was  reproduced  on 
May  19th,  1918,  in  the  Sunday  edition  of  the 
New  York  Times.'' 

6  On  this  point  the  reader  should  consult  Mauclair'a 
several  articles  in  the  Hemaine  Litteraire  of  Geneva,  in 
the   years    191G    and    1017. 

7  Here  are  the  words  of  a  man  who  has  won  great  es- 
teem among  American  scholars,  Lucien  Foulet:  "Tlie 
book  contains  some  good,  some  bad;  without  entering 
into  any  detail  I  will  tell  you  that  as  far  as  the  life  of 

35 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Our  readers  will  of  course  recall  the  part 
played  by  minister  Richelieu,  in  the  famous  lit- 
erary ' '  querelle  du  Cid ' ' ;  the  historian  of  the  fu- 
ture may  have  to  examine  the  part  of  another 
minister  in  the  querelle  du  Feu.  No  secret  is 
made,  especially  in  the  last  pages  of  the  book 
under  consideration,  of  the  author's  disbelief  in 
the  idea  of  patrie.  The  question  then  arose: 
How  was  it  that  books  much  less  outspoken  on 
much  less  paramount  issues  should  have  been 
pitilessly  censored  while  Le  Feu  was  not  ?  And 
how  was  it  that  this  book  belittling  patriotism 
should  have  been  allowed  to  come  out  just  at  the 
time  when  those  very  ideas  were  used  by  German 
propaganda  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  create  a 
demand  for  peace  in  France?  A  plausible  an- 
swer was  made  repeatedly  and  openly:  because 
the  minister  of  the  interior  was  then  Malvy, 
who  was  later  charged  with  treason;  Malvy  al- 
lowed the  book  to  pass  (see  the  article  in  the 
New  York  Times  already  mentioned).®    A  care- 

the  trenches  is  concerned,  it  is  in  no  way  a  faithful  ren- 
dering. I  have  passed  twenty-one  months  in  the  trenches 
and  I  know  what  it  is.  As  for  the  language  of  the 
'poilu,'  he  idealizes  it  from  certain  points  of  view,  and 
renders  it  extraordinarily  vulgar  at  times."  ( From  a 
private  letter.) 

8  Louis  J.  Malvy,  Minister  of  the  Interior  in  the  Vivi- 
ani,    Briand   and   Ribot   cabinets,   was   reckoned   one   of 
the  most  astute  political  figures  in  France.     It  was  in 
36 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

ful  reading  of  the  book  may,  to  some  extent,  ab- 
solve Barbusse  of  any  active  intention  to  aid  the 
enemy.  While,  theoretically,  he  is  opposed  to 
purely  national  pursuits  and  advocates  human 
ideals  (he  has  again-said  so  since  the  war  is  over. 
See  above,  end  of  chapter  I,  pages  23-24),  yet  in 
this  concrete  case  of  the  Great  War  he  believes 
that  France  is  waging  a  just  fight.  In  other 
words,  unless  new  arguments  are  brought  for- 
ward, one  can  only  make  this  statement,  that 
German  propagandists  may  have  used  the  book 
of  Barbusse  in  a  way  of  which  he  himself  may 
have  disapproved.  As  far  as  the  writer  knows, 
Barbusse  never  took  the  trouble  to  answer  the 
critics.     This  may  be  due  to  pride.^ 

July,  1917,  that  his  position  was  first  assailed.  At  that 
time  M.  Clemenceau,  later  French  Premier,  charged  that 
M.  Malvy  was  spreading  "defeatist"  propaganda  among 
the  troops,  and  Malvy's  resignation  of  his  post  as  Min- 
ister of  the  Interior  was  announced  early  in  August. 
In  November,  1917,  Malvy  introduced  in  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies  a  bill  demanding  that  he  be  tried  before  the 
high  court,  and  the  Chamber  appointed  a  committee  of 
thirty-three  to  inquire  into  the  merits  of  the  case.  This 
committee  submitted  its  report  calling  for  Malvy's  im- 
peachment. On  August  G,  1918,  Malvy  was  found  giiilty 
of  holding  communication  with  the  enemy  and  sentenced 
to  five  years'  banishment.  The  sentence,  however,  did 
not  carry  with  it  civic  degradation. 

9  Concerning  the  success  of  the  book  in  America  the 
situation  is  about  the  same  as  in  France,  namely,  that 
it  is  quite   possible  that  German   agents  helped   in   ad- 
vertising Le  Feu;  but  Under  Fire  was  published  by  a 
37 


r2U70 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  literary  historian  of  the  future  will  have 
to  take  into  account  another  fact  when  he  comes 
to  discuss  the  case  of  Barbusse.  It  is  that  the 
attitude  which  he  assumes  toward  the  soldier  is 
an  effect  of  his  morbid  temperament.  It  was 
Barbusse,  it  must  be  remembered,  who  a  few 
years  before  Le  Feu,  wrote  L'Enfer  (1908), 
which  is  surely  as  morbid  and  impure  a  book  as 
any  man  might  care  to  handle.  There  are  many 
ways  of  expressing  views  of  life  which  bespeak 
despair  and  disgust.  Examples  of  this  are 
afforded  by  the  literatures  of  all  ages,  from 
Buddha  and  Omar-Khayyam  to  Leopardi, 
Schopenhauer,  and  Baudelaire.  But  why 
should  Barbusse  choose  the  most  repulsive?  It 
seems  natural  enough  that  a  man  of  his  tempera- 
ment should  write  about  the  heroes  of  the 
trenches  whom  the  war  had  thrust  upon  his  at- 
tention, in  the  same  abnormal  manner  which  he 
had  adopted  in  describing  the  repulsive,  though 
perhaps  real,  creatures  of  his  former  work." 

firm  (Button)  which  has  shown  strong  pro-Ally  tend- 
encies and  could  therefore  be  blamed  only  for  lack  of  due 
caution.  It  was  unfortunate  that  the  translation  came 
out  just  at  the  time  when  American  public  opinion  had 
to  decide  whether  or  not  America  should  enter  the  war; 
it  did  not,  however,  affect  the  issue. 

10  It  is  regrettable  that,  on  strength  of  the  success  of 
Le  Feu,  an  American  firm  should  have  recently  brought 
out  a  translation  of  L'Enfer    (under  the  title  Inferno). 
38 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

The  writer  would  go  even  farther.  Surely  a 
large  part  of  the  responsibility  for  the  regret- 
table popularity  of  Le  Feu,  in  France  as  in  this 
countiy,  rests  with  the  public.  It  is  partly  an 
effect  of  the  modern  craze  for  the  sensational, 
the  abnormal,  and  the  morbid.  One  thinks  nat- 
urally of  a  woman  as  a  charming,  graceful,  kind 
creature,  and  one  considers  it  the  duty  of 
"real,"  "true,"  "original"  art,  to  represent  her 
as  willful,  masculine,  and  cruel.  The  normal 
idea  of  a  clergj^man  is  that  of  a  conventional, 
sincere,  and  honest  man,  but  he  becomes  "artis- 
tically" interesting  only  when  he  is  represented 
as  unconventional,  shrewd,  satanic.  Likewise, 
the  picture  of  a  soldier  which  comes  first  to 
mind  is  that  of  a  vigorous,  high-minded,  heroic 
fellow,  but  a  book  which  represents  him  as  shock- 
It  is  still  more  regrettable  that  in  a  somewhat  bombastic 
preface,  an  American  critic  sliould  have  spoken  of  Bar- 
busse  as  one  of  "the  most  distinguished  contemporary 
French  writers"  ("notorious"  would  have  been  better), 
and  of  L'Enfer  as  of  a  "spiritual"  book,  one  through 
which  "a  cleansing  wind  is  running."  Naivete  has  its 
limits;  such  judgments  would  certainly  cause  French 
critics  to  smile.  \\'hat  is  more  serious,  however,  in  this 
matter  is  that  the  morbid  scatology  of  the  work  is  likely 
to  produce  a  very  false  impression,  on  the  American 
mind,  of  the  type  of  novel  which  is  welcome  by  the 
French  public.  It  is  a  well  known  fact  that  many  repul- 
sive novels  which  have  passed  as  French  works,  were 
of  German  origin,  and  in  the  spirit  of  an  insidious  prop- 
aganda, were  intended  to  dishonor  the  name  of  France. 
39 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ingly  non-heroic,  homesick,  and  shirking  hard- 
ships, is  regarded  as  the  work  of  the  "original, 
superior  artist " ;  it  would  be  terribly  bourgeois 
not  to  accept  that  distressing  picture,  and  the 
opportunity  is  good  for  one  who  feels  within  him 
the  soul  of  a  Philistine  to  make  himself  appear  a 
person  of  superior  judgment. 

The  reader  who  looks  for  strong  sensations  in 
war  literature  because  he  thinks  that  the  terrible 
and  the  sickening  are  inseparable  from  that  kind 
of  literature,  need  not  read  Barbusse's  Le  Feu 
which  leaves  so  distinctly  unpleasant  an  after- 
taste.^^ There  are  many  others  which  one  might 
suggest  in  preference.     Let  him  take  up  at  ran- 

11  At  the  beginning  of  1919,  Barbusse  published  an- 
other war-novel  entitled  Clarte  (Flammarion) ,  which 
shows  conclusively  that  he  has  not  paid  the  slightest 
attention  to  all  that  had  been  said  of  his  first  war  book. 
Indeed,  in  many  ways,  it  seems  to  be  only  a  new  edition 
of  Le  Feu.  The  hero  of  the  book  is  one  Simon  Paulin, 
a  small  clerk  and  a  perfect  Philistine,  who  takes  life  as 
it  comes,  allowing  himself  to  be  led  by  society  as  at  pres- 
ent organized  without  protest  or  conscious  reaction. 
The  war  breaks  out;  he  is  called  to  the  colors,  and  an- 
swers the  call ;  he  then  sees  and  goes  through  all  the 
horrors  pictured  in  Le  Feu  and  repictured  once  more  in 
Clarte.  As  he  lies  wounded  and  delirious  on  the  field 
of  battle,  the  thought  comes  to  him  that  the  people  hav.e 
always  been  led  like  cattle.  That  passivity  of  the  peo- 
ple,— not  only  in  his  own  country,  but  in  all  nations  in- 
cluding Germany, — irritates  him,  and  he  dreams  there- 
fore, of  destroying  all  national  emblems  and  of  working 
towards  the  establishment  of  a  Republic  of  the  United 
States  of  the  World. 

40 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

dom  any  of  the  war  diaries  which  we  mention 
below,  and  he  will  not  be  disappointed.  But  he 
will  soon  notice  that  although  no  writers  who 
have  had  experience  of  the  war,  can  consistently 
refrain  from  speaking  of  its  horrors, — and  this 
is  true  even  of  those  who  like  Commandant 
Henches  and  the  author  of  Lettres  d'un  Soldat 
take  up  their  pen  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of 
getting  away  from  the  atmosphere  of  war  into 
that  of  serene  and  quieting  meditation, — yet 
there  is  not  one  who  has  systematically  taught 
that  war  has  no  redeeming  features;  not  one 
who  has  failed  to  acknowledge  that  the  war  has 
brought  out  beautiful  traits  in  human  nature, 
and  that  even  the  humblest  soldier  participates 
in  that  moral  uplifting  which  human  suffering 
brings  to  every  man,  however  lowly  his  station 
in  life. 


Barbusse,  apparently,  would  have  us  believe 
that  his  language  is  that  of  an  unprejudiced 
philosopher.  Let  us  now  examine  the  work  of  a 
man  who  might  put  forth  a  similar  claim  and 
with  better  reason ;  a  man  who  is  just  as  anxious 
as  Barbusse  to  avoid  jingoistic  talk.  "We  shall 
see  then  what  the  attitude  of  an  ante-war  "in- 
41 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tellectual"  can  be  when  he  has  not  the  peculiar 
bent  of  a  Barbusse. 

Adrien  Bertrand's  novel  L'Appel  du  Sol 
(1916)  ^^  will  never  appeal  much  to  the  general 
public  because  in  addition  to  magnificent  battle 
scenes — some  of  which  would  not  suffer  by  com- 
parison with  even  such  classics  as  Merimee's 
Prise  de  la  Redoute, — it  contains  long  chapters 
devoted  entirely  to  philosophical  discussions. 
But  the  reader  who  is  interested  in  ideas  will 
pronounce  L'Appel  du  Sol  superior  to  any  of  the 
three  books  we  have  alread}^  mentioned. 

In  some  respects  it  reminds  one  of  Le  Feu. 
It  is  composed  with  marked  artistic  care ;  we 
mean  that  its  scenes  are  not  mere  photographic 
or  gramophonic  reproductions  of  picturesque  or 
telling  episodes,  but  are  minutely  and  exquis- 
itely worked  out.  The  characters,  too,  are  not 
merely  real,  they  are  composed  of  traits  care- 
fully selected  and  skillfully  worked  up  into  con- 
sistent unities ;  and  the  whole  work,  like  Le  Feu, 
answers  thus  perfectly  to  our  definition  of  war- 
fiction,  as  an  artistic  rearrangement  of  facts  with 
a  view  to  bringing  out,  more  vividly  than  real- 
ity, some  aspect  or  other  of  the  war.     Like  Bar- 

12  It  was  awarded  a  Prix  Goncourt  in  1916, — for  1914 
when  none  had  been  awarded. 

42 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

busse  again,  Bertrand  maintains  philosophical 
unity  b}'^  grouping  a  few  men  who  present  not  so 
much  different  points  of  view  as  different  as- 
pects of  the  same  general  point  of  view.  But 
here  we  have  reached  the  parting  of  the  ways. 

Barbusse  has  rather  narrow  socialist  or  anar- 
chist inclinations,  while  Bertrand  is  an  intellec- 
tual of  a  much  broader  type.  He  does  not,  un- 
der pretext  of  doing  away  with  all  sophistry  or 
hyproerisy,  pick  out  as  sole  representatives  of 
the  soldiers  men  of  no  education  whose  words  are 
mainly  expressions  of  distress  at  their  material 
privations  or  of  revolt  at  the  appalling  slaughter 
which  arrests  in  them  all  thought,  and  reduces 
them  to  the  state  of  passive  instruments  of  war. 
Bertrand  also  reproduces  the  thoughts  of  the 
common  soldiers,  but  the  words  which  he  quotes, 
even  when  the  speaker  is  uneducated,  do  not  sug- 
gest an  utterly  ignoble  philosophy.  When,  for 
instance,  Angielli  grumblingly  remarks  after  a 
fierce  battle:  "Ce  n'est  rien  de  mourir,  mais 
c'est  dur  de  ne  pas  manger,"  his  philosophy 
(and  there  is  a  world  of  it  in  that  short  sentence) 
is  by  no  means  of  a  sordidly  materialistic  kind, 
nor  is  his  attitude  one  of  surly  revolt  against  the 
government  which  demands  of  him  military  serv- 
ice. And,  as  we  have  elsewhere  remarked,  one 
43 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

can  give  any  coloring  to  the  war  philosophy  of 
the  common  soldiers  by  the  selection  which  one 
makes  of  their  reported  utterances. 

But  Bertrand  introduces  men  of  culture. 
They  are  the  ofiScers  who  are  allowed  to  con- 
tribute a  large  part  to  the  discussion  of  the  prob- 
lems which  the  war  has  raised.  And,  indeed, 
why  should  they  not  ?  Why  should  only  the  ig- 
norant have  a  right  to  speak,  as  in  Barbusse? 
There  is  an  interesting  parallel  drawn  between 
the  two  chief  figures  among  those  officers,  Lucien 
Fabre,  a  very  young  "  Saint-Cyrien, "  soldier 
by  profession  who  becomes  philosopher  by  the 
accident  of  the  war,  and  Vaissette,  "agrege  de 
Philosophic,  ancien  normalien  et  Professeur  de 
lycee, ' '  philosopher  by  profession  and  soldier  by 
the  accident  of  war.  This  Vaissette  who  repre- 
sents the  ' '  intellectual ' '  in  the  war,  Bertrand  has 
portrayed  in  a  masterly  way.^^  And  then,  there 
is  another  clever  parallel  between  Nicolai  who 
has  learned  warfare  in  colonial  service,  and  the 
young  man  (Fabre)  who  has  acquired  his  knowl- 
edge through  courses  at  Saint-Cyr.  These  offi- 
cers discuss  of  course  chiefly  topics  related  to  the 

13  Since  Bertrand's  book,  that  type  has  appeared  often, 
either  in  novels  like  Marcel  Berger's   (see  below),  or,  es- 
pecially,   in    war-recollections:     R^dier,    Genevois,    Fri- 
bourg,  Malherbe,  Delvert,  etc. 
44 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

war;  they  discuss  the  soldiers  of  Marathon,  of 
Cannae,  of  the  First  French  Republic,  of  Mari- 
gnan,  or  the  courage  of  the  Christian  martj^rs. 
Their  symposiums  take  place  after  or  before,  and 
sometimes  even  during,  an  encounter.  After 
one  of  the  great  battles,  our  group  of  philos- 
ophers walk  to  a  cemetery,  some  distance  away, 
to  talk  over  the  slaughter  that  had  just  taken 
place.  Vaissette  especially  "was  thirsting  to 
exchange  ideas  with  some  one  in  order  to  make 
his  own  ideas  clearer  to  himself"  (p.  70). 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  how,  all  through  the 
book,  Bertrand  (who,  before  the  war,  had  writ- 
ten in  a  cynical  vein  Le  Jardin  de  Priape,  and  a 
play.  La  Premiere  Berenice)  endeavors  to  main- 
tain an  attitude  of  detachment,  and  eagerly 
seizes  upon  incidents  calculated  to  convince  the 
reader  that  he  is  not  cheaply  jnelding  to  the  ever 
present  dramatic  note ;  e.  g.,  as  the  squad  is  about 
to  take  part  in  a  dangerous  attack  in  which  many 
men  are  bound  to  die,  Vaissette,  in  the  course  of 
a  discussion  why  the  men  are  willing  to  lay  down 
their,  lives,  remarks  that  they  are  all  "sound 
asleep";  the  inference  being  that  the  determin- 
ing factor  in  the  momentous  decision  which  tbey 
take,  is  not  the  moral  struggle  within  them,  not 
the  sense  of  duty  to  the  country  which  demands 
45 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  supreme  sacrifice,  but  their  physical  fitness 
or  exhaustion  at  that  time.  Elsewhere,  the  dis- 
cussion brings  to  light  how  easily  the  best  and 
most  carefully  laid  plans  may  be  rendered  in- 
effectual by  the  accidental  interference  of  some 
unthought  of,  and  in  itself  unimportant  event, 
and  seems  to  point  to  the  conclusion  that  chance 
is,  after  all,  the  ultimate  cause  of  success  or  of 
defeat  in  battle  .  .  .  Yoltaire's'' pyrrhonisme  de 
rhistoire."  The  soldiers  do  not  willingly  accept 
the  idea  that  their  readiness  to  die  is  not  attrib- 
utable to  some  purpose  clearly  realized  by  them ; 
but  when  they  try,  each  in  his  own  way,  to  define 
that  "cause"  of  their  devotion,  one  feels  uneasy 
in  observing  that  they  do  not  seem  to  know  why 
they  sacrifice  their  lives ;  some  say  that  they  are 
fighting  because  they  were  attacked,  others  that 
it  is  to  win  back  Alsace-Lorraine,  others  again 
that  it  is  to  put  an  end  to  war  itself,  or  not  to  be 
worried  again  by  the  Germans,  or  because 
France  cannot  be  wrong.  Again,  it  is  evidently 
not  by  an  oversight  that  Bertrand  left  with- 
out definite  conclusion  the  following  discussion 
between  two  officers : 

"My  Voltairian  soul  has  long  doubted  the  ex- 
istence of  God,"  said  Vaissette,  "but  this  war 
46 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

has  helped  me  to  pass  from  doubt  to  the  cer- 
tainty of  his  non-existence." 

" — You  would  not  say,  I  imagine,  that  this 
war  is  a  proof  of  the  triumph  of  reason  in  the 
world  .  .  .    ?" 

This  was  from  Captain  le  Gueri,  who  had  just 
joined  the  group ;  and  the  conversation  contin- 
ued under  the  serene  sky  as  the  Captain  added : 
"You  see  in  the  war  a  condemnation  of  my 
creed  [belief  in  God] ,  and  I  see  in  it  a  condemna- 
tion of  yours.  This  war  means  the  bankruptcy 
of  reason !  .  .  .  The  one  thing  that  is  certain 
is  that  religion  and  reason  have  both  proved 
themselves  unequal  to  the  task  of  preventing  this 
gigantic  folly  of  men,  I  mean  this  mad  slaugh- 
ter" (p.  250-1). 

Bertrand  goes  no  further  with  his  argumenta- 
tion, but  the  skeptic  within  him  is  compelled  to 
yield  at  last.  In  the  magnificent  chapter  Pa- 
roles avant  la  Bataille,  we  notice  the  first  conces- 
sion of  the  "intellect"  to  the  moral  beauty  of 
the  great  wave  of  sacrifice  which  the  world-ca- 
tastrophe had  favored.  Although  he  finds  no 
rational  explanation  of  what  he  sees,  his  admira- 
tion wrings  from  him  the  admission  "qu'on  pent 
tout  obtenir  de  I'etre  humain"  (p.  183)  ;  and 
47 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

that  "tout"  means  heroism  and  sacrifice.  And 
before  we  reach  the  end  of  the  book,  we  find 
Bertrand  adopting  the  metaphysical  formula, 
"Ce  qui  les  dirigeait  tons,  c'etait  I'appel  de  la 
terre  frangaise"  (p.  245);  this  is  as  far  as  he 
allows  himself  to  go. 

After  the  last  battle  described  in  the  book,  we 
see  Vaissette  dying  of  his  wounds.  The  philos- 
opher in  him  is  still  on  his  guard  lest  his  intel- 
lect be  deceived  by  sentimentality,  emotionalism, 
the  hypocrisy  of  politics,  or  what  not.  When,  at 
that  supreme  hour,  he  asks  the  stretcher-bearers 
for  news  of  his  fellow  soldiers  and  officers,  and 
receives  in  reply  to  each  inquiry  the  same  mo- 
notonous and  tragic:  "killed!  .  .  .  killed!  .  .  . 
killed!"  his  only  answer  at  first  is:  "And  so 
am  I ! "  But  soon  his  body  is  shaken  by  a  con- 
vulsion, and  then,  opening  his  eyes  with  great 
effort,  he  murmurs  as  he  closes  them  again  for- 
ever: "But  France  lives  on." 
*         *         * 

A  few  words  ought  to  be  devoted  at  this  point 
to  two  belated  war  novels — of  1919 — which  are 
of  the  same  order  as  the  two  just  discussed. 

Barbusse  had  few  disciples ;  he  had  some,  how- 
ever, probably  the  most  original  of  them  being 
48 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Leon  Werth,  who  in  his  Cluvel  Soldat  shows 
with  much  brilliancy  the  same  spirit  of  anni- 
hilation as  regards  principles  of  patriotism,  and 
other  bourgeois  conceptions  of  life;  moreover, 
having  done  all  his  duty  as  a  soldier,  he  feels 
a  right  to  speak  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to 
say  that  war  is  as  ugly  as  anything  can  be  and 
that  there  is  no  need  to  try  and  lie  about  it  by 
telling  of  the  heroisms  of  all  sorts  which  it  en- 
genders. Clavel,  who  thus  wages  war  on  war, 
has  found  a  volume  of  Rousseau's  Confessions  in 
the  trenches,  and  he  reads  about  the  idyll  of 
the  Charmettes;  he  thinks:  "this  is  life  in- 
deed"; .  .  .  but  he  fails  to  reflect  that  the  war 
was  fought  by  the  Allies  to  bring  about  the  pos- 
sibility of-  such  a  life. 

The  second  of  those  novels  is  Jean  de  Gran- 
villier's  Le  Prix  de  l' Homme.  But  both  the 
content  and  the  form  would  rather  class  it  with 
Bertrand  's  Appel  du  Sol.  The  hero— really  the 
author  as  well — Lieutenant  Miguel  de  Larreguy, 
is  a  young  man  full  of  ardor  who  has  been  long- 
ing for  something  that  would  make  life  worth 
living;  he  finds  the  something  in  the  trenches. 
That  is  to  say,  he  comes  to  the  conclusion  that 
there  is  no  condition  in  this  world  like  war,  to 
49 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

call  forth  the  best  that  is  in  a  man.  The  ac- 
counts of  actual  war  experiences  are  equal  to 
many  of  the  best  in  the  best  war  books. 

The  same  spirit  of  enthusiasm  for  the  oppor- 
tunities of  war,  with  almost  a  mystic  note  added 
to  it,  is  found  in  Ch.  Briand's  novel,  Le  Sang 
(1919). 

There  is  in  Marcel  Berger's  Le  Miracle  du  Feu 
a  delicate  love  affair  interwoven  with  the  ac- 
count of  the  first  weeks  of  the  war ;  but  the  main 
interest  of  the  work  lies  in  the  author's  very  keen 
psychological  analysis  of  a  soldier's  mind. 
While  Gaspard,  Bourru  de  Vauquois,  and  the 
men  of  the  squad  in  Le  Feu,  are  all  uneducated 
men  who  have  sprung  from  the  common  people 
of  France,  Berger's  hero,  a  sergeant  named 
Michel,  like  Bertrand's,  belongs  to  the  class  of 
the  intellectuals.  But  Vaissette,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, had  always  studied  life  in  the  dis- 
interested spirit  of  a  philosopher  and  theor- 
ist; Michel,  who  is  also  an  educated  man,  had 
used  his  knowledge  and  refinement  for  the  at- 
tainment of  purely  selfish  ends.  His  attitude 
when  the  war  breaks  out  is  frankly  that  of  a 
cynic.  He  has  a  good  position  which  affords  him 
plenty  of  leisure,  and  he  leads  a  comfortable,  un- 
.  50 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATIOlvJ 

eventful,  seLG-centered  life^  Emotion  he  has 
banished  as  a  disturbing  factor ;  he  has  remained 
a  bachelor  because  marriage  imposes  responsibil- 
ities which  he  does  not  wish  to  assume.  When 
he  is  called  to  the  colors,  he  joins  his  regiment 
with  some  reluctance ;  not,  indeed,  through  any 
sense  of  dut}^  but  because  by  not  doing  so  he 
would  bring  trouble  upon  himself.  Once  in  the 
army,  he  is  very  anxious  to  avoid  all  unneces- 
sary work ;  he  is  f riendlj^  toward  his  soldiers  not 
by  natural  inclination,  but  because  it  is  the 
best  way  to  avoid  trouble;  he  strongly  resists 
any  temptation  to  be  carried  away  by  patri- 
otic sentiments;  the  first  daring  deed  which  he 
witnesses  on  the  battlefield  he  explains  away: 
"a  man  who  has  no  nerves."  He  watches  over 
himself,  is  ever  mindful  of  the  safe  principle: 
' '  each  for  himself  in  a  fray  like  this " ;  he  even 
commits  ungentlemanly  acts,  as,  for  instance, 
when  he  stealthily  exchanges  his  leaking  can- 
teen for  a  sound  one  which  he  takes  from  one  of 
his  fellow  soldiers.  But,  very  gradually,  and 
very  slowly,  the  sight  of  human  suffering  around 
him,  the  courage  displayed  by  the  men,  and  the 
genuine  kind-heartedness  of  his  humble  compan- 
ions, make  him  change  his  attitude;  he  deeply 
realizes  the  tragedies  caused  by  the  death  of 
51 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

heads  of  families  and  of  recently  married  men; 
he  is  affected  by  the  help  that  religion  will  bring 
to  some  poor  dying  fellow ;  and  although  he  still 
likes  to  think  of  himself  as  of  a  superior  intel- 
lectual being,  he  is  already  a  changed  man.  His 
behavior  in  the  heroic  days  of  the  Mame  (sector 
of  Ourcq) ,  shows  how  great  has  been  the  change. 
He  is  wounded ;  loses  one  leg ;  and  for  some  time, 
in  the  hospital  where  he  lies  helpless,  his  old  self 
takes  hold  of  him  again;  he  revolts  against  life. 
But  the  gentle  consolation  of  a  loving  woman  dis- 
pels the  threatening  cloud,  and  his  better  self 
triumphs  in  the  end. 

This  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  painstaking 
and  thorough  products  of  literature  of  the  war 
in  the  form  of  a  conventional  novel.  It  is  the 
best  presentation  of  that  theme,  moral  regen- 
eration through  suffering,  which  has  so  often 
been  treated  since  (in  novels  and  in  soldiers' 
diaries,  and  on  the  stage)  that  it  has  become 
not  only  commonplace  but  almost  exasperat- 
ing at  times.  This  recurrence,  however,  can 
certainly  be  taken  as  an  indication  that  the  war 
has  actually  rescued  many, — especially  among 
the  intellectuals  and  the  artists, — from  a  life  of 
discontent  and  gloom;  that  it  has  shattered  the 
dreams  of  some  who  had  set  themselves  an  unat- 
52 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tamable  goal,  has  inspired  others  ^Yho  were  liv- 
ing aimlessly,  and,  to  all,  has  offered  a  definite 
and  beautiful  task.^* 


One  of  the  most  refreshing  of  the  war  novels, 
— and  one  which  the  public  received  with  evi- 
dent pleasure, — ^is  Marcel  Nadaud's  Chignole'^^ 
(1917).  Chignole  is  a  young  Parisian,  and, — 
what  is  more  significant — a  child  of  Montmartre ; 
Le  Goffic  called  him  appropriately  enough, 
"Gavroche  avec  des  ailes."  He  is  intelligent 
and  witty ;  and,  conscious  that  his  versatility  will 
stand  him  in  good  stead  in  all  circumstances,  he 
never  worries.  His  philosophy  can  be  expressed 
in  a  ver}^  few  words:  '^Ve  pas  s'en  faire." 
From  early  boyhood  he  had  had  a  vague  interest 
in  mechanics ;  he  therefore  went  to  work  in  a  bi- 
cycle shop ;  later,  following  the  movement  of  the 

1*  Berger's  book  was  heavily  censored,  but  two  remark- 
able passages  which  were  allowed  to  remain  deserve  to 
be  pointed  out.  Tlie  first  is  Berger's  definition  of  the 
skeptic's  attitude  towards  the  war,  in  a  speecli  which  he 
puts  in  the  mouth  of  Fortin,  one  of  Micliel's  fellow  sol- 
i-ers  (pp.  87-94)  ;  the  other  showing  the  "miracle  du 
feu,"  in  Michel's  own  words,  just  before  a  striking  de- 
scription of  the  ofTensive  of  the  Marne   (pp.  .391-395). 

15  A  chignole  is  a  special  type  of  brace  which  aviators 
frequently  have  occasion  to  use  in  all  kinds  of  adjust- 
ments of  their  machines.  In  Xadaud's  book  the  word  is 
applied,  as  a  nickname,  to  a  picturesque  young  aviator 
on  account  of  his  wonderful  resourcefulness. 
53 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

times,  he  obtained  employment  successively  in  an 
automobile,  and  in  an  aeroplane  factory.  He 
was  just  twenty  when  the  war  came  with  all  its 
splendid  opportunities  for  a  youth  of  his  type. 
The  pilot e  who  is  supposed  to  be  writing  the  book 
has  just  raised  Chignole  from  the  rank  of  a  me- 
chanic (mecano)  to  that  of  observer.  That 
means,  of  course,  that  Chignole  is  going  to  fly; 
and  his  enthusiasm,  his  energy,  his  taste  for  all 
the  most  extraordinary  and  foolhardy  adven- 
tures, make  him  a  figure  worthy  of  the  pen  of 
the  writer  of  The  Three  Musketeers.  Chignole 
is  at  once  wonderfully  clever,  magnificently  he- 
roic, profoimdly  touching  and  picturesquely  ab- 
surd, and  retains  withal  a  delightful  childlike 
simplicity. 

Chignole  could  best  be  described  as  the  Gas- 
pard  of  aviation.  Although  the  work  was  pub- 
lished as  late  as  1917, — that  is  the  same  year  as 
the  gloomy  Le  Feu, — Chignole  has  the  same 
spirit,  the  same  irrepressible  cheerfulness  as 
Benjamin's  hero.  The  explanation  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  extraordinary  vitality  and  alert- 
ness needed  for  aviation  work  kept  the  men  in 
those  units  from  experiencing  the  depression  to 
which  the  men  in  the  trenches  fell  victims. 
Every  day  they  played  with  death,  and  there- 
54 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

fore  had  no  fear  of  it.     Indeed,  their  foolhardi- 
ness  won  for  them  the  reputation  of  being,  one 

and  all,  crazy  fellows!^*' 

*         *         * 

It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that,  after  the  war 
had  lasted  three  years,  and  its  men  and  arms  had 
been  celebrated  in  many  books,  the  reading  pub- 
lic should  feel  that  the  theme  of  the  hour,  though 
inexhaustible  in  itself,  might,  perhaps,  be  re- 
newed with  advantage  b}^  some  fresh  method  of 
treatment,  or  by  laying  stress  on  some  aspects  of 
the  war  which  had  hitherto  been  neglected. 
Several  writers  attempted  that  renewal.  They 
left  the  main  stream  of  warlike  events  in  which 
the  real  fighting  soldiers  are  winning  glory,  suf- 
fering, conquering  and  dying,  to  explore  what 
may  be  called  the  backwaters  of  the  war:  the 
very  necessary,  but  much  less  glorious  activities 
behind  the  lines. 

16  Chignole  was  not  Nadaud's  first  work.  Before  the 
war  he  had  written  Coups  de  Griff e.  .  .  .  Pattes  de 
Velours,  and  Tendresses.  .  .  .  Tristesses.  He  has  also 
recorded  his  experiences  in  the  Aviation  Service  in  En 
plein  Vol,  S!ouvenirs  de  Guerre  Aerienne,  1017,  a  book 
which  has  had  enormous  success.  More  recently  still,  he 
has  published  Les  derniers  Mousquctaires,  and  Fraugi- 
pane  et  Cie — tolling  the  death  of  Chignole;  and  a  biog- 
raphy of  Guyneraer  which,  however,  is  much  less  elabo- 
rate than  the  one  written  by  Henri  Bordeaux. 

Of  the  same  order  as  Chignole,  is  Badigeon,  aviateur, 

by  Lieut.  G ,  pilote  (101!)). 

55 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Of  the  two  novels  we  are  going  to  take  up  here, 
one  deals  with  a  half  soldier,  an  "  auxiliaire, " 
the  other  with  a  man  even  farther  remote  from 
military  activities,  a  war-reporter — whose  very 
slight  connection  with  military  matters  per- 
mitted of  his  being  smuggled  into  a  war-novel. 

The  first  is  Marcel  Berger's  Jean  Darhoise, 
Aiixiliaire^''  (1918).  It  is  a  very  long  novel. 
As  we  have  already  had  occasion  to  notice  in 
studying  Le  Miracle  du  Feu,  M.  Berger  has  not 
the  gift  of  brevity.  But  the  work  is  nevertheless 
interesting,  were  it  only  as  a  document.  Dar- 
boise  is  a  soldier  who  after  bedng  wounded  at 
Verdun,  has  recovered  but  is  not  well  enough  to 
be  sent  back  to  the  front ;  he  must  therefore  join 
an  auxiliary  corps.  In  civil  life  he  was  an  artist, 
a  designer,  and  he  suffers  greatly  at  being  kept  at 
tasks  which  might  just  as  well  be  done  by  the 
most  unskilled  laborers.  He  is  sent  to  Dunkirk, 
an  industrial  city  and  sea  port  in  the  North  of 
France :  a  place  absolutely  devoid  of  interest  for 
a  man  of  his  mentality,  and  which,  during  the 
war  was  frequently  visited  by  German  raiding 
aeroplanes.     His  life  there  is  minutely  described 

1"  Auxiliary  troops  are  composed  of  men  who  are  phy- 
sically unfit   for   duty  on   the   firing  line,  but   who  are 
valid  enough  for  all  kinds  of  fatigue  work. 
56 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

in  all  its  wretchedness.  The  barracks  are  unat- 
tractive ;  he  therefore  takes  some  poor  lodgings  in 
town ;  and  from  morning  till  evening,  for  the 
glory  of  France,  he  unloads  ships,  helps  in  the 
making  of  bread  for  the  army,  or  does  occasional 
work  in  some  factory  or  other.  It  is  all  dirty, 
brainless,  purely  manual  work.  There  is  not 
among  his  fellow  soldiers  a  single  congenial  man. 
They  are  the  dregs  of  the  array,  "rien  que  des 
faces  d'abrutis  ou  de  brutes,  les  deux  grandes 
categories,"  and  the  officers  who  command  them 
are  not  much  better  than  the  men.  To  a  soldier 
who  has  known  Verdun  with  all  its  horrors  and 
perils,  but  with  its  tragic  beauty  too ;  for  a  man 
who  has  enjo^-ed  the  companionship  of  the  splen- 
did troops  of  Verdun,  the  situation  is  well  nigh 
intolerable.  After  150  pages,  however,  the  pic- 
ture is  pretty  well  completed,  and  we  enter  then 
into  a  regular  psychological  novel,  or  we  should 
say  rather  into  two  novels. 

The  first  one  is  the  romance  of  his  love  for  his 
family.  One  day,  it  is  true,  he  becomes  un- 
faithful to  his  wife  as  a  consequence  of  the  de- 
moralizing etfect  upon  him  of  that  deadly  dull 
locality.  His  wife  cannot  understand,  and  they 
are,  for  a  time,  estranged  from  each  other. 
57 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  second  is  the  story  of  the  intense  suffer- 
ing of  Darboise's  soul.  So  great  indeed  are 
those  sufferings,  that  he  can  bear  them  no  more 
and  he  rebels  against  his  lot  and  against  the  mil- 
itary authorities.  He  is  cast  into  prison  from 
which  he  is  delivered  by  an  attack  of  pneumonia. 
In  the  hospital  to  which  he  is  taken,  he  meets  a 
good  and  kind  non-commissioned  officer  (whose 
little  romance  also  appears  in  the  book)  who 
saves  him  from  despair  and  reconciles  him  with 
his  lot  and,  later,  with  his  wife. 

All  things  considered,  Jean  Darhoise  is  a  novel 
of  the  same  ij^Q  as  Le  Miracle  du  Feu.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  conversion  of  a  snob  to  a  man 
of  courage  and  worth.  But  since  the  conditions 
under  which  an  "auxiliaire"  lives  are  less  in- 
spiring than  those  of  a  soldier  of  the  Marne,  the 
final  moral  victory  of  Darboise  is  even  greater 
than  that  of  Michel,  the  hero  of  Le  Miracle  du 
Feu.  Nevertheless  the  fact  remains  that  Dar- 
boise will  never  inspire  the  reader  with  the  same 
interest  as  Michel.  In  that  respect,  he  remains 
the  victim  of  his  surroundings;  for  the  descrip- 
tion of  a  dismal  manufacturing  town  in  war  time 
can  never  have  the  fascination  of  the  relation  of 
battles  and  of  other  experiences  of  a  soldier  of 
the  first  line.  Even  Jean  Darboise  of  Dunkirk 
58 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

compares  unfavorably   with   Jean  Darboise   of 
Verdun/^ 


In  spite  of  what  has  been  said, — and  even  if 
one  takes  into  account  the  fact  that  a  war  cor- 
respondent has  necessarily  a  lesser  claim  to  in- 
terest than  a  soldier  on  active  service — Rene 
Benjamin's  Le  Major  Pipe  et  son  Pere  (1918)  is 
distinctly  inferior  to  Gaspard.  A  young  jour- 
nalist has  shown  a  little  more  than  contempt  for 
England 's  part  in  the  war.  One  day,  his  duties 
as  war  correspondent  take  him  to  the  British 
front,  and  later  to  England.  He  is  received 
with  cordiality,  nay  more,  he  is  treated  with  con- 
sideration, and  very  soon  he  is  won  over  by  the 
solid,   comfortable  organization  of  the  English 

18  If  the  whole  truth  is  to  be  told,  it  must  be  said  that 
although  the  "will  to  live"  and  to  suffer  for  one's  coun- 
try is  the  note  with  which  the  book  closes,  the  disquiet- 
ing thought  thrusts  itself  upon  one  tliat  the  author  has 
inserted  his  conclusion  rather  as  a  matter  of  duty  than 
of  conviction.  One  cannot  help  noticing  tliat  on  page 
203  he  makes  one  of  his  characters  say  in  reference  to 
Barbusse's  Le  Feu:  "It  is  the  sincere  cry  of  a  man  of 
genius,  to  which  the  heart  of  all  France  eagerly  re- 
sponded" (un  genial  cri  de  sincerite,  accueilli  dans  touts 
la  France  avec  un  immense  soulagement) . 

P.  Coutras  has  also  written  a  novel  of  the  same 
gloomy  inspiration,  Les  Tribulations  d'un  Auanliaire 
(1916).  The  bitterness  in  the  tone  of  Coutras's  book 
has  been  traced  by  some  to  personal  experiences  of  the 
author  as  a  "soldat  au.xiliaire." 
59 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Army  and  Navj%  by  the  generous  British  way 
of  doing  things,  and  by  the  simple,  sincere, 
hearty  hospitality  which  is  offered  him.  When 
he  returns  to  his  own  country,  not  only  is  he  a 
sincere  Anglophile,  but  he  is  convinced  that  he 
has  "discovered"  England.  More  than  that,  he 
develops  something  which  savors  of  a  certain 
contempt  for  the  treatment  which  the  French 
government  metes  out  to  its  soldiers.  Those 
thoughts  he  communicates  privately  to  his  wife. 

It  must  be  confessed  that  Benjamin  has 
yielded  a  little  too  readily,  in  this  work,  to  his 
taste  for  satire.  It  was  not  necessary  that  the 
representative  of  the  French  press  should  be 
represented  as  so  vain  and  provincial.  A  more 
delicate  satire  would  have  been  quite  as  effec- 
tive— even  more  so.  At  the  same  time,  it  was 
a  good  idea  to  use  that  scheme  to  familiarize 
the  French  public — who  was  even  in  1918  in 
need  of  enlightenment  upon  that  subject — with 
some  aspects  of  the  organization  of  the  British 
army  as  compared  with  that  of  the  French." 

The  same  criticism  would  apply  to  Grand- 
goujon,  a  novel  published  by  Benjamin  after  the 
close  of  the  war   (1919).     The  adventures  and 

19  Cf.  M.  J.  Aulneau,  Au  Front  Britanmque,  Tableaux 
et  recits  d'un  Observateur  (Payot,  1919). 

60 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

experiences  of  that  Frenchman  of  forty,  who 
does  not  know  very  well  wiiether  he  is  in  or  out 
of  the  army,  is  more  the  caricature  of  a  type 

than  a  real  type. 

*         *        * 

We  would  go  far  beyond  the  limits  we  have  set 
ourselves  if  we  were  to  deal  at  any  length  with 
the  numerous  volumes  of  short  stories  in  which 
types  of  soldiers  are  sketched — most  of  the  time 
by  soldiers  themselves.  But  we  ought  to  men- 
tion, by  title  at  least,  some  of  the  best  collections, 
as  Claude  Farrere:  Histoires  de  Quatorze  Sol- 
dais;  H.  Bordeaux:  Jeunesse  Nouvelle;  Contes 
Veridiques  des  tranchees,'  par  un  groupe  de 
Poilus;  Noiweaiix  Contes  Veridiques,  by  the 
same,  and  a  third  collection.  Sous  I'Obus;  Les  As 
peints  par  eux-memes;  since  the  war  (1919),  the 
remarkable  volume  by  Vignaud,  Les  Sauveiirs 
du  Monde  "contes  suggeres  par  d 'horribles  vi- 
sions"; A.  Arnoux,  Le  Cabaret. 

One  special  word  about  Pawlowski's  Signaux 
a  I'Ennemi  (1918).2o 

Cleverly  illustrated  b}^  Gus  Bofa,  this  little 
volume  of  225  pages  has  an  originality  all  its 
own.     It  is  a  collection  of  very  simple  stories,  the 

20  For  Pawlowski's  other  works,  see  chapter  III,  sec- 
tion 3. 

61 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

atmosphere  of  which  has  every  appearance  of 
being  more  genuinely  "poilu"  than  that  of  any 
other  book  that  has  come  under  our  notice.  The 
pictures  which  the  stories  present  are  certainly 
most  "plausible,"  and,  if  one  may  be  allowed 
to  use  once  more  that  much  abused  word,  thor- 
oughly ''human."  The  principal  story  (which 
gives  its  title  to  the  collection)  is  an  amusing 
account  of  the  excitement  caused  in  a  canton- 
ment on  the  firing  line,  by  the  strong  suspicion 
that  a  spy  signals  to  the  enemy  whenever  one  of 
the  men  go  up  into  an  observation  tower.  Who 
is  the  spy?  Finally,  but  not  before  one  of  the 
men  has  been  arrested  as  a  suspect,  it  turns  out 
that  each  time  that  some  one  goes  up  into  the 
tower,  a  number  of  frightened  crows  take  their 
flight  from  the  roof  into  the  open  sky,  and  the 
Germans  have  need  of  no  other  signal  to  inform 
them  that  it  is  time  to  make  a  target  of  the  tower. 

War  Recollections  and  Diaries 

Introductory 

If  Bacon's  definition  ars  homo  naturae  additus 

be  accepted,  the  war  diary  must  be  admitted  to 

rank  much  lower  as  a  literary  genre  than  the 

war    novel.     Its    artistic    inferiority,    however, 

62 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

does  not  deprive  the  war  diary  of  its  title  to  'be 
regarded  as  the  most  characteristic  li.erary 
product  of  the  war,  and  the  most  trustworthy- 
source  of  information  regarding  certain  aspects 
of  it. 

War  literature,  as  we  have  already  .said,  like 
the  war  itself  which  gave  it  birth,  is  something 
exceptional,  abnormal ;  and  as  Balzac  has  pointed 
out  in  his  preface  to  La  Comedie  Humaine, 
nature,  especially  in  times  of  great  crises,  is 
vastly  more  prolific  of  what  we  regard  as  ex- 
traordinary situations,  than  the  most  vivid  im- 
agination of  any  man  could  ever  be. 

The  soldiers  who  saw  some  part  of  the  war, 
and  who  were  able  to  handle  a  pen,  realized 
that  truth  and  acted  accordingly.  Their  man- 
ner of  recording  their  experiences  is  not,  of 
course,  uniform,  but  the  very  large  number  of 
volumes  of  war  recollections  is  evidence  enough 
to  show  that  the  natural  tendency  of  writers 
was  to  '* record"  their  war  experiences  rather 
than  to  "re-create"  them  in  the  interests  of 
art.  Moreover,  writers  took  it  for  granted  not 
only  that  they  might,  but  that  they  should  speak 
in  the  first  person ;  it  was  indeed  important  that 
the  "ego"  of  the  soldier  of  1914  should  be  re- 
vealed with  as  little  artistic  draping  as  possible; 
63 


TREl  CH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

far  f:*om  marking  any  lack  of  modesty,  that 
simple  self-revelation  betrays  rather  a  genuine 
desire  to  be  as  truthful  as  possible;  again  most 
of  those  recollections  are  less  those  of  individuals 
than  of  groups  of  individuals;  they  are,  as  it 
were,  impersonal  recollections.  As  to  the  reader, 
the  times  were  too  serious,  the  subject  too  im- 
portant for  him  to  be  satisfied  with  anything  less 
than  the  whole  truth ;  he  would  have  resented  as 
an  act  of  bad  faith  any  partial  concealment  of 
the  soldier's  ''reactions"  whether  good  or  bad, 
whether  heroic  or  disheartened.  And  now  if 
the  picture  which  we  obtain  from  a  perusal  of 
those  war  recollections  is  on  the  whole  a  bright 
one,  that  brightness  must  be  attributed  to  the 
inspiration  which  the  men  received  from  their 
intense  patriotism  and  from  the  consciousness  of 
the  justice  of  their  cause. 

France  produced  during  the  war  an  ample 
and  beautiful  harvest  of  war  recollections.  In 
this  she  was  faithful  to  her  ancient  traditions, 
for  it  was  from  France  that,  at  the  dawn  of 
Modem  Civilization,  came  those  first  and  fairest 
of  epic  poems  which  bore  as  their  motto.:  Gesta 
t>ei  per  Francos;  and  in  subsequent  centuries, 
France  has  counted  among  her  most  famous  cap- 
64 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tains  men  who  also  took  rank  among  her  most 
famous  writers ;  the  old  classic  Brantome, 
Agrippa  d'Aubigne,  La  Rochefoucauld,  de  Retz, 
Marbot,  Stendhal  and  others,  to  say  nothing  of 
men  like  Ronsard,  Honore  d'Urfe,  and  Descartes, 
who,  although  they  did  not  write  on  military 
matters,  had  wielded  the  sword  before  they  took 

up  the  pen. 

*         *         * 

Among  the  military  writers  of  the  past,  there 
is  one  who  has  appealed  particularly  to  the 
soldiers  of  the  present  war,  and  whose  works, 
we  are  told,  have  been  read  more  than  those  of 
any  others  in  the  trenches  (for  the  French 
soldiers  did  a  great  deal  of  reading  in  the 
trenches) — Alfred  de  Vigny.  This  popularity 
of  Vigny  was  due  not  only  to  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  shining  light  during  one  of  the  brilliant 
periods  of  French  literature,  but  because  in  his 
classic  Servitude  et  Grandeur  Militaires  (1836), 
he  had  approached  in  a  remarkably  modern 
spirit  all  the  great  problems  which  the  war  has 
again  thrust  upon  the  attention  of  thinking 
men ;  such,  for  instance,  as  the  questions  whether 
the  idea  of  a  citizen  army  as  opposed  to  a  mer- 
cenary army  is  Utopian ;  whether  war  is  to  last 
65 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

forever  or  whether  peace  can  be  made  to  do  so ; 
and  questions  relative  to  the  nature  of  patriot- 
ism, of  military  honor,  etc. 

*         *         * 

The  first  of  these  topics, — citizen  armies, — 
had  been  foremost  in  the  minds  of  French 
officers  for  several  years  before  the  war.  The 
first  time  since  Vigny's  daj^s  that  the  subject 
had  been  presented  to  the  French  reading  public 
in  such  a  manner  as  to  create  a  deep  impression, 
w^as  in  Pingot  et  moi  (1893),  a  very  remarkable 
work  by  Art  Roe.^^ 

Pingot  et  moi  immediately  established  the 
author's  reputation  as  an  authoritative  writer 
on  military  topics.  And  Art  Roe  himself  attrib- 
utes his  military  writings  to  the  inspiration  of 
Vigny's  little  book.  He  reminds  us  how  clearly 
Vigny  had  stated  the  great  problem  which  con- 
fronts all  governments  in  this  democratic  age, 
when  he  wrote  on  the  morrow  of  the  French 
Revolution:  "On  ne  pent  trop  hater  I'epoque 
ou  les  armees  seront  identifiees  a  la  nation,  si 
elle  doit  acheminer  au  temps  ou  les  armees  ne 
seront  plus,  et  oil  le  globe  ne  portera  plus  qu'une 

21  Art  Roe    ( pseudonym  for  Patrice  Mahon )   was  born 
at  Lons-le-Saulnier,  Jura,  in  1S65;   he  was  a  lieutenant 
in  the  French  army  when  Pingot  et  moi  appeared. 
66 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

nation  unanime  enfin  sur  les  formes  sociales"; 
and,  after  inquiring  what  has  been  done  since 
1870  to  re-form  and  re-create  the  army,  he  con- 
cludes: **Le  voeu  d 'Alfred  de  Vigny  est  accom- 
pli; notre  armee  n'est  plus  que  la  nation  en 
armes. ' ' 

Indeed  it  would  be  difficult  for  any  one  truly 
to  understand  the  modem  French  army,  the 
army  that  fought  the  Great  War,  without  read- 
ing Art  Roe.  The  admirable  spirit  of  coopera- 
tion of  chiefs  and  soldiers,  which  has  been  so 
often  and  apparently  so  justly  praised  since 
1914,  finds  its  explanation  in  Art  Roe's  works. 
It  is  that  cooperation  which  differentiates  the 
French  army  not  only  from  the  German  in  which 
the  human  rights  of  the  individual  soldier  seem 
so  much  neglected,  but,  to  a  very  large  extent 
from  the  British  army  also,  if  the  reports  of 
many  Americans  who  have  had  opportunities  of 
observing  conditions  during  the  war  are  to  be 
trusted.  And  this  achievement  is  the  result  of 
much  arduous,  consistent  and  sustained  thought 
and  effort.  The  title  Pingot  et  moi  is  a  program 
in  itself.  Pingot  is  the  orderly'  of  the  lieutenant 
who  relates  the  story;  he  is  a  good  fellow  "aux 
bons  grands  yeux  honnetes,  aux  levres  volontiers 
souriantes";  he  is  moreover  an  excellent  soldier. 
67 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Pingot  is  well  treated  by  his  superior  who  under- 
stands that  he  is  not  a  professional  soldier  and 
not  a  ''mercenary,"  but  a  man  who  has  been 
torn  away  from  civilian  life.  In  return  for  that 
human  sympathy,  Pingot  shows  himself  a  de- 
voted servant,  ever  readj^  to  do  anj'thing  that 
his  chief  desires  him  to  do.  He  enjoys  nothing 
more  than  to  be  allowed  to  carry  out  an  order  in 
his  own  way,  and  thus  he  develops  a  very  good 
spirit  of  initiative.  The  book  does  honor  to  the 
great  heart  of  the  man  who  wrote  it.  Art  Roe 
takes  up  the  same  problem  in  his  second  book: 
Mon  Regiment  Russe  (1899).  He  is  sent  on  a 
mission  to  study  the  Russian  army,  and  is  in- 
terested to  find  how  the  famous  general  Drago- 
mirov  has  solved  the  problem  of  developing  the 
soldier  without  suppressing  the  man.  "Ou 
trouver  un  systeme  d 'education  militaire  respec- 
tueux  de  la  personne  himiaine  et  qui  tende  a 
accroitre  I'homme  en  I'homme?"  (p.  166),  It 
will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  problem,  as  under- 
stood by  our  author,  is  not  merely  that  of  not 
harming  the  man  during  the  process  of  making  a 
soldier  of  him;  he  wants  the  officers  to  handle 
the  training  in  such  a  manner  that  it  will  actu- 
ally have  been  of  advantage  to  the  man  later  on 
when  he  returns  to  civilian  life.  There  are  in- 
68 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tensely  interesting  passages  in  Roe's  second 
book;  that,  for  instance,  in  which  he  says  that 
Dragomirov's  work  in  the  Russian  barracks 
brought  back  to  his  mind  a  certain  passage  of  the 
Gospel :  "  Je  me  suis  souvenu  de  cette  parole  du 
Christ:  qui  donne  son  dme  pour  I'amour  de  moi, 
la  retrouvera"  (p.  181).-^ 

#         *        * 

The  importance  of  Art  Roe's  work  cannot  be 
exaggerated.  Pingot  et  moi  is  the  common  an- 
cestor of  those  officers'  diaries  which,  together 
with  the  diaries  of  the  private  soldiers,  are  our 
most  important  sources  of  documentation  on  the 
army's  part  in  the  war.  During  the  twenty-one 
years  that  elapsed  between  the  publication  of 
Pingot  et  moi  and  1914,  quite  a  number  of  offi- 
cers had  succeeded  in  interesting  the  public  in 
their  recollections  and  in  their  years  of  service 
in  the  colonies.  Baratier's  Epopees  Africaines 
(author  killed  at  Verdun)   and  Capitaine  Cor- 

22  The  problem  of  the  Russian  officers  is  very  different 
from  that  of  the  French.  Art  Roe  has  expressed  that 
difference  in  the  following  manner:  The  Russian  officer 
has  to  develop  the  personality  of  the  soldier  by  drawing 
it  out  of  the  Russian  mass,  while  our  problem  in  France 
consists  in  the  making  of  a  compact,  tightly  knit,  homo- 
geneous mass  out  of  elements  which  are  distinct  and 
strongly  individualistic  (p.  362).  In  both  countries  the 
end  in  view  is  the  same:  that,  namely,  of  forming  an 
army. 

69 


t 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

net's  La  Conquete  du  Maroc  are  two  of  the  best 
known  publications  of  that  kind. 

Two  other  works,  written  by  much  younger 
officers,  and  dealing  with  the  psychology  and 
philosophy  of  military  life,  were  attracting  a 
great  deal  of  attention  on  the  eve  of  the  war. 
The  first  is  Psichari's  L'Appel  des  Amies  (1913) 
which,  although  it  is  presented  in  the  form  of  a 
novel,  is  nevertheless  full  of  personal  recollec- 
tions. The  mystic  note  of  those  pages,  in  which 
the  author  exalts  the  profession  of  the  soldier 
to  the  point  of  saying  "War  is  divine,"  is  very 
striking.^^  The  other  is  Nolly 's  Gens  de  Guerre 
du  Maroc  (1913)  2*  which  is,  all  told,  a  more 
sober,  and  also  a  more  solid  work ;  and  one  which 
will  probably  replace  Psichari's  Appel  des 
Amies  in  the  memory  of  men.  Nolly  is  the 
more  direct  continuator  of  the  work  of  Art  Roe. 
His  sjonpathetic  study  of  the  French  soldier  is 
remarkably  relevant,  objective  and  keen.  There 
was  absolute  certainty  in  his  mind  after  1911, 
that  war  could  not  be  averted,  but  his  confidence 

23  This  mystic  note  is  even  stronger  in  a  posthumous 
novel  of  Psichari's,  La  Veillee  du  Centurion,  published 
at  the  end  of  1914. 

24  Nolly  is  Capitaine  d'Etanger's  nom  de  plume. 

70 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

in  the  sterling  qualities  of  the  army  in  which  he 
was  serving  was  no  less  absolute. 

"To  those  who  know  not  the  worth  of  the 
sword  of  France  because  thej-  have  not  seen  it 
thrust  and  slash ;  to  those  who  timidly  waver,  we 
say:  We  have  seen  it,  and  we  know.  Take 
heart !  We  have  tried  the  force  which  you  en- 
trusted to  our  care,  and  we  vouch  for  its  high 
excellence.  Some  day  it  will  work  wonders  in 
order  that  the  home  of  beauty  and  of  good  may 
abide  forever.  .  .  .  Lift  up  your  heads ! ' ' 

No  prophecies  concerning  the  war  have  re- 
ceived such  astonishing  confirmation  from  the 
events  as  those  of  Nolly's  Gens  de  Guerre  du 
Maroc.'^. 

I.  Philosophical  Type — First  Phase 

The  three  men  whom  we  have  just  mentioned 
died  very  early  in  the  war:  Patrice  Mahon 
(Art  Roe),  who  was  then  a  lieutenant  colonel, 
fell  at  Sainte-]\Iarie-des-Mines,  in  the  Vosges,  on 
August  22nd,  1914;  Psichari  was  killed  the  same 

25  For  a  detailed  study  of  Psiehari's  and  Nolly's  pro- 
war  writings,  and  other  pre  war  literature  dealinfj  with 
the  war,  the  reader  is  referred  to  our  study  of  "Le 
Roman  Militaire  en  France  de  1S70  Jl  1914"  {Puhlica- 
tions  of  the  Modern  Language  Association  of  America, 
March  1919). 

71 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

day  during  the  great  retreat  to  the  Marne,  and 
Nolly  after  being  first  wounded  on  August  10, 
and  again  on  the  31st  of  the  same  month,  died 
on  September  3rd.  They  wrote  nothing,  there- 
fore, regarding  the  war  itself;  but  there  were 
many  others  who,  at  that  time,  were  ready  to 
continue  their  work  with  pen  as  well  as  with 
sword. 

One  of  the  first  of  the  diaries  to  appear  was 
Paul  Lintier's  Avec  une  hatterie  de  75,  Ma  Piece. 
Souvenirs  d'un  Cannonier  de  1914  (1915).  This 
work  was  at  once  recognized  as  one  of  excep- 
tional and  lasting  value,  as  may  be  judged  by  the 
fact  that  it  ran  through  53  editions  before  the 
end  of  the  war.  Its  author  was  promptly 
awarded  the  Prix  Monthyon  by  the  French 
Academy. 

Paul  Lintier  was  born  in  1893.  He  was  there- 
fore only  21  when  he  wrote  Ma  Piece.  After 
being  trained  for  a  business  career,  he  decided 
to  take  up  law,  and  while  still  in  his  teens  began 
to  write.  In  1912,  he  was  enrolled  in  the  44th 
regiment  of  Artillery  and  was  made  a  quarter- 
master in  1914.  He  was  severely  wounded  on 
September  22nd,  1914,  but  recovered  and  re- 
turned to  the  front  as  lieutenant  in  July,  1915. 
He  was  killed  at  Jeandelincourt,  in  March,  1916. 
72 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

The  freshness  of  impressions  is  what  dis- 
tinguishes his  book  from  all  others  of  the  same 
kind,  for  it  was  written  before  the  intense  emo- 
tions of  the  first  hours  of  the  war  had  had  tirae 
to  subside.  It  is  indeed  remarkable  how,  in  later 
writers,  a  familiarity  of  even  a  very  few  weeks 
with  the  events  of  the  war  sufficed  to  dull  the 
keen  edge  of  their  sensibility,  so  that  impressions 
were  received  and  registered  with  less  conscious- 
ness of  horror,  admiration  or  enthusiasm.^^ 
But  in  Ma  Piece  we  still  have  the  full  vibration 
of  a  3'oung  soldier's  whole  being;  and  because 
that  "being"  is  a  noble  instrument,  we  are  abso- 
lutely thrilled  as  he  describes  that  first  battle 
(pp.  75-88)  with  its  first  dead;  those  first  cries 
and  moans  of  the  first  wounded ;  the  tragic  sud- 
denness of  the  adjustment  which  the  men  had  to 
make  to  new  conditions  when  they  passed  with- 
out transition  on  that  first  morning,  from  the 
enjoyment  of  the  peaceful  countryside  and  quiet 
villages  through  which  they  had  marched,  to  the 
roaring  of  guns  right  ahead  of  them,  and  to  the 
sight  of  burning  houses  and  long  trains  of  dis- 
tressed fugitives.  .  .  .  And,  the  next  day,  when 

26  That  remark  is  true  even  of  Lintier's  second  book 
which  is  a  sequel  to  Ma  Piece:  viz..  Le  Tube  J 233,  Sou- 
venirs d'un  Chef  de  Piece,  published  after  his  death  by 
Plon,  1915-1916. 

73 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  men  were  running  their  "75"  into  position, 
they  heard  the  forlorn  cry  of  a  little  girl,  alone 
and  lost  in  that  hell:  cries  of  "Maman! 
maman!"  and  they  were  distraught  with  grief 
because  they  had  to  go  by,  and  might  not  stop  to 
comfort  the  child  (pp.  168-169)  .  .  .  Then  it 
was  the  retreat  day  after  daj",  that  long  retreat 
in  which  they  were  never  beaten  but  never  al- 
lowed to  make  a  stand;  and  it  was  the  physical 
exhaustion,  and  the  need  of  sleep,  and  the  de- 
moralization due  to  days  of  incessant  rain,  and 
the  ghastly  sight  of  long  trains  of  wounded,  and 
the  fixed  idea,  in  the  minds  of  some  of  the  men, 
that  they  were  betrayed  by  their  chiefs.  .  .  . 
And  then,  at  last,  it  was  the  order  to  stop  on  the 
Marne,  and  the  wave  of  superhuman  strength 
that  came  upon  the  men  (p.  209)  .  .  .  But 
then,  again,  there  came  the  vast  fields  of 
slaughter,  and  the  harrowing  tales,  in  the 
liberated  villages,  of  the  savage  outrages  of  the 
Huns  (how  they  deserved  the  name!)  so  that 
when  some  one  in  the  battery  suggested  that  the 
war  might  last  three  months,  he  was  greeted  by 
an  angry;  "Three  months!  but  long  before  that 
we  shall  all  be  creves  de  miser e." 

And   nevertheless   the    "misery"    lasted   for 
four  years  and  a  half ! 

74 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Let  us  quote  this  one  passage  (p.  166)  : 

"Ah!  if  I  survive  this  hecatomb,  how  well  I 
shall  know  how  to  live !  I  had  never  thought 
that  there  was  joy  in  the  mere  facts  of  breathing, 
of  opening  one's  eyes  to  the  morning  light,  of 
absorbing  it,  of  feeling  warm  or  cold,  or  even  of 
suffering.  I  thought  that  only  certain  hours  in 
life  were  worth  living,  and  I  let  the  others  go 
by.  If  I  should  see  the  end  of  this  war,  I  shall 
know  how  to  detain  each  passing  hour;  I  shall 
make  it  a  point  to  get  out  of  each  second  of  life 
every  sensation  that  it  can  yield ;  and  it  will  be 
to  me  like  the  feeling  of  delightfully  cool  water 
passing  through  my  fingers. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  I  shall  stop  then  at  any 
time,  interrupt  a  sentence,  stay  a  gesture,  just 
to  repeat  to  myself:  'I  am  alive!  ...  I  am 
alive!  .  .  .'  " 

The  young  officer  who  wrote  that  did  not  live ; 
neither  did  nearly  two  million  of  his  countrymen 
who  surely  felt  as  he  did,  although  they  had  not 
his  powers  of  expression. 

*         *         * 

Maurice  Genevoix's  Sons  Verdun,  Aout  1914, 
with  a  preface  by  E.  Lavisse,  (1915),  was  pub- 
lished shortly  after  Lintier's  Ma  Piece.-'     Gene- 

27  The  reader  will  not,  of  course,  expect  to  find  in  this 
75 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OE  THE  GREAT  WAR 

voix's  talent  is  equal  to  that  of  Lintier;  he  lacks, 
however,  Lintier 's  spontaneousness ;  but  being 
a  more  practiced  writer,  he  compensates  by 
his  consummate  skill  in  working  up  his  ma- 
terial, for  the  relative  lack  of  the  direct  pres- 
entation of  immediate  reactions.  Moreover, 
Genevoix  relieves  by  occasional  flashes  of  healthy 
humor  the  depressing  gloom  of  the  picture  of 
war.  He  relates  many  episodes  in  which  cheer- 
fulness gets  the  better  of  exhaustion,  hunger, 
suffering  of  all  kinds,  when  the  men  heroically 
make  light  of  the  most  searching  and  painful 
tests  of  their  endurance;  and  we  must  bear  in 
mind  that  this  was  at  a  time  when  they  were 
not  yet  hardened  to  their  new  life;  when  they 
were  still  keenly  conscious  of  the  horrors  of  the 
war;  when  lying  wounded  on  the  field  they 
would  still  yield  occasionally  to  despair,  crying 
out  for  their  mothers,  or  imploring  the  stretcher- 
bearers  to  remove  them  from  the  field,  or  to  kill 
them  at  once.  Genevoix  gives  us  also  the  bright 
picture  of  a  noble  comradeship  between  two  offi- 
cers, men  of  very  different  types :  the  Normalien 
Genevoix  and  the  Saint  Cyrien  Porchon.  The 
general  idea  which  the  book  brings  out — that 

book  a  description  of  the  great  battle  of  Verdun,  for  this 
began  only  in  February,  1916. 
76 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

war,  with  all  its  hardships  and  cruelties,  calls 
forth  manifestations  of  beautiful  traits  in  human 
character,  and  leads  at  times  to  a  noble  moral 
exaltation, — is  perhaps  best  summed  up  in  the 
naive  language  of  honest  Pannechon,  the 
author's  orderly:  ''War  is  not  so  simple  a  mat- 
ter as  one  would  have  thought  at  first.  There 
are  some  good  things  in  it,  and  there  are  some 
bad.  There  are  especially  bad  things  .  .  . 
though,  of  course,  one  comes  across  some  good 
ones.  Only,  the  bad,  in  war  is  first-class  bad; 
it  is  terrible,  I  would  like  to  say  .  .  . ;  and  that 
is  why  a  little  bit  of  pleasure  is  enough  at  times 
to  bring  back  to  you  a  taste  for  life.  One  feels 
that  one  could  not  stand  suffering  all  the  time. 
One  must  nurse  one's  strength,  for,  after  all,  one 
hasn't  so  much  of  it  that  one  can  afford  to  waste 
it.     We  are  only  men,  aren't  we,  Sir?" 

We  may  remark  here  that  as  the  war  pro- 
ceeded, the  cheerful  note  grew  fainter  and 
fainter  in  the  volumes  of  war  recollections; 
humor  either  lost  its  lightness  and  became  grim, 
or  it  disappeared  altogether  in  the  same  manner 
as  we  have  already  noticed  it  gradually  disap- 
pear as  we  passed  from  Gas  par  d  to  Bourru,  and 
from  Bourru  to  Le  Feu. 

The  last  words  of  the  book  inform  us  that 
77 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Lieutenant  Genevoix  is  about  to  leave  for  an- 
other sector :  Les  Eparges.  That  word  is  suffi- 
cient, for  it  is  full  of  terrible  associations.  It 
was  there  that  his  friend  Porchon  was  killed 
February  20th,  1915.  If  the  reader  wishes  to 
follow  the  author  in  his  later  war  experiences, 
he  should  read  his  Nidts  de  Guerre  (1917),  and 
All  Seuil  des  Guiiounes  (1918). 

*  *  *  V 

Another  earlj-  war  book  which  met  with  im- 
mediate success  was  the  correspondence  pub- 
lished anonymously  ^®  under  the  title  Lettres 
d'un  Sold-at,  Aout  1914 — Avril  1915,  to  which 
Andre  Chevrillon  contributes  a  preface  (1915). 
Many  of  the  letters  had  previously  appeared  in 
the  Revue  de  Paris.  They  are  those  of  a  young 
soldier  who  after  eight  months  and  one  day  of 
warfare,  "did  not  return  from  an  attack."  He 
was  an  artist  in  civilian  life ;  and  all  his  inclina- 
tions, all  his  education,  all  his  aims  in  life,  were 
diametrically  opposed  to  that  which  the  war  de- 
manded of  him;  and  these  pages  which  he  ad- 
dresses to  his  aged  mother  reveal  in  what  spirit 

28  The  author  is  said  to  be  Eugene  Emmanuel  Lemer- 
cier,  who  had  earned  before  the  war  an  enviable  reputa- 
tion as  an  artist.  Cf.  E.  E.  Lemercier,  Peintures,  Des- 
sins  et  Croquis,  with  a  preface  by  Andr4  Michel,  Chape- 
lot,  1919. 

78 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

he  accepted  the  task  which  was  imposed  upon 
him. 

Though  evidently  frail  in  bod}-,  he  is  mag- 
nificent in  moral  strength.  AH  his  energy  is 
gathered  up  in  an  effort  to  resist  the  temptation 
to  moral  relaxation  in  the  midst  of  physical 
fatigue.  He  must  be  very  exhausted  indeed  to 
fail  to  send  home  at  least  a  short  note  whenever 
the  opportunity  presents  itself;  and  he  keeps 
constantly  in  touch,  by  his  reading,  with  the 
great  minds  of  the  world:  Spinoza,  Verlaine, 
A.  France  and  the  Song  of  Roland.  He  re- 
members music  with  plea.sure,  not  excepting  Ger- 
man music.  Andre  Chevrillon  pertinently  re- 
marks in  his  preface  that  it  was  also  during  war- 
time that  Marcus  Aurelius  wrote  his  immortal 
Meditatio7is. 

While  Lintier  moves  us  by  the  relation  of 
striking  war  episodes,  the  anonymous  author  of 
the  Letters  moves  us  by  his  determined  effort  to 
get  away  from  the  somber  realities  of  the  war 
whenever  he  is  off  duty,  and  to  re-temper  his 
soul  by  contact  with  what  is  neither  low,  nor 
unclean,  nor  terrible,  "  J  'ai  eleve  mon  ame  a  une 
hauteur  oil  les  evenements  n'ont  pas  eu  prise 
sur  elle"  (p.  23).  And  for  a  long  time,  this 
artist,  surrounded  by  what  is  repulsive,  ugly, 
79 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

revolting,  triumphantly  struggles :  ' '  Take  cour- 
age,"  he  says  to  himself,  "this,  after  all,  is  a 
question  of  adaptation:  a  test  of  our  higher 
nature.  ...  I  have  made  resolute  vows  to  re- 
main always  in  communion  with  God"  (p.  27). 
He  neglects  no  opportunity  of  admiring  na- 
ture, which  remains  ever  serene  and  beautiful. 
It  is  remarkable,  indeed,  how  often,  in  the  midst 
of  the  horrors  which  must  have  been  harrowing 
to  a  soul  so  delicate  and  refined,  the  word  beauty 
comes  under  his  pen.  He  clings  to  beauty,  and 
where  it  is  not,  his  painter's  imagination  creates 
it  for  him.  Once,  when  a  severe  bombardment 
had  driven  his  squad  underground,  and  kept  it 
there  for  several  hours,  he  catches  sight,  through 
the  narrow  opening  by  which  the  dug-out  re- 
ceived ventilation,  of  a  ''beautiful  tree"  out- 
lined against  the  sky,  the  sight  of  which  brings 
him  comfort  and  renews  his  strength.  .  .  .  "Do 
not  think  that  I  am  indifferent  to  the  awful  sad- 
ness of  the  sights  which  at  all  times  surround 
us  .  .  .  that  sadness  is  the  very  reason  for  which 
I  cling  to  the  higher  consolation"  [beauty] 
(p.  52).  "The  beauty  of  the  snow  was  deeply 
moving"  (p.  114)  .  .  .  " My  heart  was  strength- 
ened by  triumphant  beauty"  (p.  119).  "There 
are  hours  of  such  beauty  that  those  who  see  it, 
80 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

are,  for  tlie  time,  immune  to  death"  (p.  121) 
.  .  .  "the  unspeakable  beauty  of  certain  sights" 
(p.  122).  And  beauty,  again,  is  the  last  word 
which  he  uses  in  writing  to  his  mother  on  that 
sixth  day  of  April,  1915,  a  few  hours  before  he 
was  reported  missing,  just  before  the  launching 
of  an  attack  the  hazards  of  which  he  fully  real- 
ized:  "Whatever  happens,  life  will  not  have 
been  without  its  beauty"  (p.  164). 

It  would  probably  be  difficult  to  find  in  any 
book  a  more  convincing  demonstration  of  how 
suffering  brings  out  the  noblest  qualities  of  man. 
And  our  anonymous  artist  knows  it  and  he  is 
profoundly  grateful  for  the  intense  suffering 
which  taught  him  to  know  his  better  self:  "It 
is  paradoxical,  as  you  say,  but  I  have  just  lived 
the  most  beautiful  hours  of  my  moral  life.  .  .  . 
Be  assured  that  there  will  alwaj's  be  beauty  on 
earth,  and  that  man  will  never  be  wicked  enough 
to  stamp  it  out.  ...  I  have  gathered  enough 
experiences  to  fill  a  whole  life.  ^laj^  destiny  only 
give  me  time  to  bring  all  that  I  have  gathered  to 
fruition.  .  .  .  There  is  one  thing  that  no  one  can 
take  away  from  us,  it  is  the  treasure  of  the  soul 
which  we  have  won"  (p.  19).  He  expresses 
sentiments  which,   in  their  loftiness,  are  truly 

Christian:     "Tell  M that  if  fate  strikes  the 

81 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

best,  it  is  not  unjust:  the  wicked  who  survive 
will  be  made  better  thereby"  (p.  23). 

It  seems,  therefore,  sad  beyond  expression  that 
this  noble,  energetic  soul,  after  months  of  intense 
physical  suffering,  should  be  made  to  feel  that 
moral  heroism  has  its  limits  after  all.  He  man- 
fully refuses  to  acknowledge  it  to  himself,  but  the 
iour  comes  when  the  pressure  put  upon  him  is 
too  great,  and,  reading  between  the  lines,  we 
see  that  his  strength  is  waning :  ' '  Dear  Mother, ' ' 
he  writes,  "after  weeping  tears  of  revolt 
[against  the  ' atrociousness  of  the  situation'],  to 
which  I  have  yielded  all  these  days,  I  am  again 
able  to  say :  Thy  will  be  done!  yes,  I  am  regain- 
ing composure"  (pp.  128-129);  and  again: 
' '  How  comes  it  to  pass  that  such  horrors  should 
be?"  (p.  137)  and  yet  again,  after  telling  her, 
in  order  to  give  her  pleasure,  that  he  is  to  be 
promoted  to  the  rank  of  sergeant,  and  that  he 
has  been  commended  for  conspicuous  bravery: 
' '  But,  dear  Mother,  how  long  the  war  has  lasted ! 
too  long,  indeed,  for  such  as  felt  that  they  surely 
had  a  mission  in  life.  .  .  ,  Will  they  not  with- 
draw me  from  here  so  that  I  may  accomplish 
something  elsewhere?  Why  should  I  be  sacri- 
ficed while  others  who  have  not  my  gifts  are  in 
safety?  I  had  something  to  accomplish  which 
82 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

was  worth  while,  but  since  it  is  not  the  will  of 
God  that  the  cup  be  withdrawn,  then,  His  will 
be  done!"  (p.  139).  No  one  who  realizes  the 
intense  moral  anguish  that  this  sensitive  nature 
had  to  endure,  will  blame  him  though  he  allowed 
himself  to  pen  the  following  sentences  at  the 
close  of  a  battle :  ' '  Our  losses  have  been  fright- 
ful; those  of  the  enemy,  worse.  You  cannot 
imagine,  Mother  dear,  what  man  is  capable  of 
doing  to  his  fellow  man.  For  five  days,  now, 
my  boots  have  been  greasy  with  human  brains; 
when  I  walk,  I  crush  in  chests ;  I  am  now  looking 
upon  scattered  bowels;  our  men  lean  against 
corpses  to  eat  their  scanty  rations.  The  regi- 
ment has  behaved  heroically.  "We  have  lost  all 
our  officers.  They  all  died  gallantly.  Two 
good  friends  of  mine  are  among  the  dead.  One 
of  them  had  sat  for  one  of  my  last  portraits. 
...  I  discovered  his  body  on  the  battlefield  that 
night ;  white  and  magnificent  under  the  moon- 
light. I  sat  beside  him  for  a  while.  The  beauty 
of  things  reawoke  within  me  after  a  time.  .  .  . 
At  last,  after  five  days  of  horror,  we  have  been 
withdrawn  from  that  scene  of  abominations. 
Duty,  effort"  (pp.  135-136). 

That  man,  so  gentle,  so  refined  and  generous, 
long  refrained  from  any  reference  to  his  feeling 
83 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

with  regard  to  the  Germans.  He  liked  some  of 
their  writers,  and  admired  their  music.  But  at 
last  he  is  driven  to  admit :  ' '  Unfortunately,  this 
contact  with  the  German  race  has  spoiled  for- 
ever my  opinion  of  it"  (p.  147).  Early  in  the 
war,  his  indignation  had  once  sho^soi  itself. 
Commenting  on  the  German  practice  of  forcing 
French  hostages  to  march  in  front  of  their  ad- 
vancing columns,  he  had  written:  "If  these 
notes  should  be  read  by  any  one,  may  they  arouse 
in  honest  hearts  a  feeling  of  horror  at  the  foul 
crime  of  those  responsible  for  the  war.  There 
will  never  be  enough  glory  to  cover  all  this 
blood  and  shame"  (p.  16). 

#  #  # 
We  feel  that  we  ought  here  to  mention,  al- 
though very  briefly,  a  book  which  in  some 
respects  may  be  regarded  as  a  companion  volume 
to  Lettres  d'un  Soldat:  Major  J.  S.  Henches' 
A  I'Ecole  de  la  Guerre,  Lettres  d'un  Artilleur, 
Aout  1914—Octobre  1916  (1918). ^^  It  afPords 
painful  reading,  for  although  Henches  is  a  pro- 
fessional soldier,  the  war  with  its  attendant  evils 

29  Major  Henches  was  killed  in  the  Somme  sector  Oc- 
tober 16,  1916.  He  had  four  times  been  commended  for 
bravery.  He  had  specialized  in  anti-aircraft  gunnery 
and  believed  that  the  Zeppelin  raids  on  Paris  could  have 
been  prevented. 

84 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

is  a  source  of  intolerable  suffering  to  him.  He 
declares  himself  incapable  of  grasping  the  im- 
mensity of  the  senselessness  which  precipitated 
the  conflict.  His  words  are  not  inspired  by 
anger,  but  rather  by  poignant,  crushing  grief. 
His  only  hope  is  that  the  horrors  of  the  war  will 
open  the  eyes  of  men  and  will  serve  to  bring 
about  a  permanent  peace. 

But  he  is  a  real  stoic  nevertheless.  His 
courage  is  equal  to  every  trial.  Very  quietly, 
and  with  never  a  word  of  complaint  about  his 
lot,  but  with  great  admiration  and  sympathy  for 
his  men,  he  goes  about  his  work.  His  unit  is 
sometimes  kept  in  action  during  eight  long  con- 
secutive days  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning 
till  eight  in  the  evening,  yet  they  never  falter. 

AVhat  he  prizes  even  more  than  the  splendid 
showing  of  the  army,  is  that  France,  as  a  nation, 
has  arisen  in  arms,  and  has  gone  forward  in  a 
fine  unity  of  spirit. 

We  find  repeated  here  the  experiences  of  the 
author  of  Lettres  cVun  Soldat.  As  the  war  goes 
on,  Henches'  abhorrence  of  the  Germans  in- 
creases : 

"There  are  cases  like  the  one  of  the  infantry- 
man whose  wife  has  written  telling  him  that  she 
is  big  with  child  as  the  result  of  having  been 
85 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

forced  by  a  German,  and  asking  him  what  she 
must  do:  whether  she  should  commit  suicide  or 
whether  she  may  live.  ...  It  is  possible  to  for- 
give arson;  one  may  account  for  murder  by  an- 
ger, by  fatigue,  by  a  prolongation  of  the  frenzy 
of  battle;  but  there  is  no  absolution  for  rape. 
.  .  .  They  had  hoped  in  their  pride  and  coward- 
ice that  they  would  meet  with  no  resistance.  .  .  . 
I  shall  never,  so  long  as  I  live,  be  able  to  suffer 
a  German  in  my  presence :  they  are  all  guilty ! 
That  is  the  worst  of  war:  it  scatters  seeds  of 
hatred"  (p.  40). 

"Are  the  Germans  still  to  be  regarded  as 
human  beings?"  Benches  himself  has  ceased 
to  do  so ;  but  he  hardly  knows  what  his  feelings 
towards  them  should  be:  ''What  seems  to  me 
stranger  still,  is  that  I  remember  distinctly  that 
in  the  inferno  of  battle,  I  felt  no  hatred  toward 
the  adversary.  It  seemed  to  me  as  a  struggle 
against  a  blind,  brutal  force  in  the  reducing  of 
which  that  war  machine,  the  gun,  could  alone  be 
of  use,  there  seemed  to  be  no  call  whatever  for 
any  kind  of  sentiment"  (p.  49).  This  idea  oc- 
curs in  several  war-diaries. 

How  one  can  remain  "neutral"  is  more  than 
he  can  understand:  "The  sinking  of  the  Lusi- 
tania  has  filled  me  with  horror.  I  am  wondering 
86 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

what  is  the  matter,  mentally  and  morally,  with 
those  nations  which  do  not  rise  up  to  destroy  a 
power  capable  of  such  atrocities"  (p.  70). 

And  this  Aristides,  this  just  man,  places  on 
record  his  appreciation  of  the  attitude  of  the 
Pope:  "I  have  read  that  the  Pope,  in  the  in- 
terests of  religion,  has  refused  to  make  any  pro- 
nouncement upon  the  justice  of  the  cause  of  the 
belligerents.  As  if  religion  had  anything  to  gain 
by  courting  immoral  beings.  What  cowardice ! 
What  an  insult  to  Christ!"  (p.  46). ^^ 

*         *         * 

The  next  book  which  deserves  to  arrest  atten- 
tion is  Lieutenant  A.  Redier's  Meditations  dans 
la  Tranchee  (1916).^^  It  was  written  by  a 
young  philosopher  during  the  long  dreary  hours 
in  the  trenches.  There  was  no  lack  of  time, 
then,  for  thinking,  for  classifying  one's  thoughts, 
for  deepening  them.  Redier  is  a  man  endowed 
with  the  loftiest  qualities  of  soul,  and  with  a 
mind  which  predisposed  him  to  draw  from  the 
war  the  highest  teaching  that  it  can  yield.  He 
is,  of  all  the  writers  upon  the  war,  the  most 
direct  successor  of  Alfred  de  Vigny.     The  title 

30  Henches'  remarks  upon  Remain  Rolland  are  quoted 
elsewhere   (end  of  Chapter  I). 

31  Crowned  by  the  French  Academy. 

87 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

which  he  gave  to  his  work  is  significant.  The 
Meditations  in  the  Trenches  are  upon  such  topics 
as  Duty,  Freedom,  Glory,  Power,  the  God  of 
Battles,  Courage,  Honor,  Patriotism.  .  .  .  His 
chief  interest  is  the  discovery  of  what  moral  good 
France  can  derive  from  the  war,  to  compensate 
in  some  degree  for  its  abominations.  He  finds 
that  all  is  not  loss;  that  the  war  has  served 
already  to  remind  the  French  of  their  indebted- 
ness to  the  founders  of  their  present  civilization ; 
"In  reviving  former  hatreds,  the  enemy  has 
forced  us  to  think  more  of  our  dead  and  to  get 
into  touch  again  with  our  past  as  far  back  as  the 
days  of  Joan  of  Arc  and  of  Saint  Louis."  Then 
the  war  has  taught  the  French  the  better  to  ap- 
preciate their  own  people :  the  brilliant  educated 
classes,  and  also  the  so-called  lower  classes,  those 
morally  magnificent  men  who  form  the  bulk  of 
the  army.  He  protests  against  the  term 
"poilu"  as  uncomplimentary,  because  wit,  alert- 
ness, fine  understanding  are  the  distinguish- 
ing qualities  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Great  War. 
Further,  Redier  emphasizes,  as  many  others  have 
done,  of  course,  the  remarkable  fraternity  of 
feeling  existing  between  officers  aiid  men:  they 
are  really  "Brothers  in  Arms,"  (In  this  he 
shows  himself  a   follower   of  Art   Roe   and   of 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Nolly  rather  than  of  Alfred  de  Vigny.)  In  his 
meditation  upon  Power,  he  develops  the  idea 
which  he  states  at  the  beginning  of  the  chapter: 
"that  the  war  reminds  us  that  Power  is  a 
virtue. ' ' 

One  thought  preoccupies  him  more  than  any 
other;  it  is  the  thought  of  death,  and  we  find 
it  expressed  on  the  very  first  page  of  the  volume. 
"I  wanted  to-night  during  my  watch,  to  keep 
my  mind  awake.  I  therefore  meditated  upon 
death,  and  hence  upon  duty.  I  could  have 
meditated  upon  glory,  but  I  wished  not  to  be 
dazzled  by  words.  We  are  exposed  here  every 
minute  to  a  death  which  is  glorious,  it  is  true, 
but  which  is  nevertheless  death."  What  is  the 
meaning  of  "djdng  on  the  field  of  honor"?  The 
answer  is  offered  him  by  a  soldier  who  lies  dy- 
ing in  great  pain,  his  mind  filled  with  thoughts 
of  wife  and  children :  ' '  The  heroism  of  that 
soldier  consisted  in  the  acceptance  with  resigna- 
tion of  his  destiny"  (i.e.  death).  This  is  all 
that  we  need  say.  The  slacker  who  hides  in 
some  office  at  the  rear  is  "harassed  by  the  fear 
of  death,"  while  the  men  who  seek  a  glorious 
death, — and  there  are  many  such, — are  after  all 
merely  satisfying  a  personal  aspiration.  That 
kind  of  death  is  not  the  noblest.  The  death  that 
89 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

counts  is  that  which  is  suffered  "for  duty's 
sake."  The  soldier  must  discipline  himself  to 
serve  some  higher  purpose.^-  To  accept  this 
moral  discipline  is  of  paramount  importance: 
"The  first  fruits  of  this  slaughter  will  be  a 
knowledge  of,  and  a  taste  for,  our  duties,  ..." 
"We  used  to  seek  for  what  life  had  to  offer  us 
in  the  way  of  pleasure;  and  we  consumed  our 
strength  in  the  quest  for  comfort  and  well- 
being"  (p.  8).  There  is  nothing  nohle  in  that. 
Returning  to  the  same  subject  in  another 
chapter,  he  tries  to  be  even  more  explicit:  "To 
what  purpose  shall  we  turn  this  discipline  ?  To 
the  acquiring  of  more  freedom  ? — No,  for  we  had 
too  much  freedom  already;  we  were  cursed  with 
freedom.  We  were  free  to  make  what  use  we 
thought  fit  of  our  lives,  but  we  were  slaves  to  our 
comfort  and  to  our  habits.^^  We  ought  never  to 
have  forgotten  that  all  men  are  dependent  upon 
other  men,  or  laws,  or  circumstances  of  all  sorts. ' ' 
"It  is  not  a  question  of  freedom  but  of  order" 
(p.  53).     "We  should  not,  however,  go  to  the 

32  In  another  chapter,  however,  Redier  pays  homage 
to  those  who  die  for  glory:  "All  do  not  fight  for  dis- 
tinctions and  medals;  but  all  admire  those  who  do;  and 
it  is  right  that  they  should:  how  many  there  are  who 
have  less  exalted  aims  in  life!" 

33  This  idea  will  be  taken  up  again  by  Duhamel  who 
gives   it  much   fuller   development    (see   below). 

90 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

other  extreme:  the  choice  lies  between  French 
discipline — not  freedom — and  German  tyranny" 
(p.  52).  "If  France  profits  by  the  war,  it  will 
be  through  a  mental  uplifting,  by  setting  its 
heart  upon  other  things  than  its  traditional  pur- 
suits" (p.  58).  That  is  what  must  be  achieved. 
"Since  1914,  nine  French  Department^  have 
been  paying  a  heavy  price,  in  the  form  of  cruel 
slavery,  because  we  freed  ourselves  of  our  obli- 
gation to  cultivate  order  and  discipline  during 
the  last  forty  years"  (p.  59).^* 

The  idea  that  the  war  might  teach  the  French, 
who  are  so  picturesquely  individualistic,  a  lesson 
on  the  wholesomeness  of  discipline,  is  constantly 
recurring  in  war  books.  And  no  thoughtful 
person  was  surprised  to  see  the  same  theme  re- 
peatedly taken  up  in  America  when  the  Amer- 
ican youth  were  subjected  to  armj'^  discipline. 

Indeed,  the  value  of  army  training,  apart 
from  any  use  that  may  be  made  of  it  in  actual 
war,  lies  in  the  mental  training  which  it  atford^s. 
This  had,  moreover,  been  emphasized  by  officers 
long  before  the  war,  and  particularly  by  Art 
Roe  who  in  1893,  in  Pingot  et  Moi,  had  made  the 

3*  The  author  develops  similar  ideas  later  in  his 
novel  Le  Capitaine  (1919). 

91 


FRENCH  LITERATUEE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

following  statement :  ' '  Military  discipline,  once 
accepted,  becomes  the  law  of  a  nobler  life,  and 
leaves  behind  it  that  very  Carthusian  discipline 
which  Pascal  opposes  to  it"  (pp.  79-80).  That 
comparison  of  the  part  played  by  the  Army  in 
teaching  self-control  with  that  which  is  played 
by  the  Church,  is  not  to  be  considered  as  a  pass- 
ing fancy  on  the  part  of  Roe;  he  is  speaking 
with  knowledge  and  deliberation.  He  fully 
acknowledges  the  importance  of  the  influence  of 
the  Church  on  the  life  of  the  nation,  but  he 
thinks  that  it  is  insufficient  at  times.  Referring 
to  the  days  after  1871,  when  the  Church  had  lost 
so  much  of  its  prestige  by  having  cast  in  her  lot 
with  the  Second  Empire  (which  had  led  France 
to  Sedan)  he  bluntly  asks:  ''What  was  it,  then, 
that  saved  France  from  impending  ruin  ?  I  say 
that  it  was  the  army!"  (p.  94).  Many  people 
have  been  inclined  to  think  that  the  alliance  of 
Church  and  Army  was  one  of  worldly  interests 
only,  but  it  would  probably  not  be  very  hard  to 
prove  that  this  principle  of  mental  discipline 
which  is  common  to  both  institutions  is  the 
deeper  reason  of  that  alliance.  It  may  be  more 
than  mere  chance,  and  something  altogether 
apart  from  theological  beliefs,  that  Joffre  and 
Foch  and  Castelnau  and  other  great  chiefs  of 
92 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

the  allied  annies  should  be  faithful  Catholics. 
It  was  again  that  consciousness  of  the  co- 
operation of  Church  and  Army  which  directed 
that  perfectly  independent  thinker,  Adrien  Ber- 
trand,  in  his  Appel  du  Sol  (which  we  have  al- 
ready discussed)  to  put  in  the  mouth  of  the 
Catholic  Captain  de  Gueri  the  following  words: 
"I  welcome  this  war.  Our  country  was  in  need 
of  it :  for  ever}i:hing  at  home  was  freedom,  dis- 
order and  anarch}'.  The  pursuit  of  the  war  and 
the  government  of  the  State  show  how  necessary 
it  is  that  we  should  have  order,  discipline  and 
authority.  The  Germans  had  learned  from  our 
fathers  the  value  of  these  things;  and  therefore 
their  country,  where  William  II  is  as  absolute 
as  our  Louis  XIV  was  in  his  day,  plays  in 
Europe  to-day,  the  part  which  France  did  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  To  wield  power  as  it 
should,  a  state  must  be  as  orderly  as  the  gardens 
of  Versailles.  Nothing  is  permanent  which  has 
not  been  consciously  weighed.  The  Germans  ac- 
cepted that  limitation  of  their  liberties,  with  the 
result  that  thej^  have  been  marvelous  organizers, 
as  we  were  in  the  past,  as  were  the  Romans  whose 
sons  we  are.  .  .  .  And  if  their  powerful  organi- 
zation does  not  bring  them  victory',  it  is  because 
they  are  not  yet  sufficiently  civilized.  They  are 
93 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

still  nothing  but  barbarians.  .  .  .  They  have 
not  yet  been  sufficiently  fashioned  by  the  idea. 
.  .  .  They  are  not  really  pious"  (pp.  142-3). 


We  have  stated  in  the  Preface  of  this  work 
why  it  was  necessary  for  us  to  limit  our  studies 
to  a  few  books  which  must  represent  whole 
classes  of  similar  works.  We  shall  therefore 
cast  only  a  cursory  glance  at  two  others  belong- 
ing to  this  group. 

The  first  is  Lieutenant  Marcel  Eteve's  Lettres 
d'un  Combattant,  Aout  1914—Juillet  1916 
(1917).  This  very  young  man,  a  student  of  the 
Ecole  Normale,  started  as  a  recruit,  and  died  as 
a  lieutenant  in  an  action  so  brilliant  that  it  was 
mentioned  in  army  orders.^^ 

Eteve  was  one  of  those  innumerable  French- 
men who  are  gifted  in  all  sorts  of  ways;  his 
pages  remind  one  of  the  Lettres  d'un  Soldat. 
Like  the  anonymous  author  of  the  Lettres,  he 
addresses  his  mother;  like  him  also,  he  finds  in 
music  and  in  art  a  relief  from  the  long  night- 
mare of  the  war ;  and  he  too — although  his  style 
is  not  uniformly  grave,  being  occasionally  even 
quite  picturesque  and  outspoken — finds  at  times 

35  Tliree  quarters  of  the  company,  including  all  com- 
missioned and  non-commissioned  officers,  were  killed. 
94 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION^ 

that  the  strain  is  "too  much  for  human  reason" : 
"Blessed  are  those  who  have  'got  their  billet' 
[les  zigouilles]  for  their  troubles  are  at  an 
end!";  and  to  avoid  being  overwhelmed  with 
despair,  he  takes  refuge  in  the  army  order  "not 
to  try  to  understand."  Moreover,  in  his  inmost 
soul,  he  knows  that  he  is  fighting  to  put  an  end 
to  war,  and  he  feels  that  if  he  escapes  with  his 
life,  he  will  have  a  right  to  be  a  pacifist.^'"' 

The  other  book  that  must  be  at  least  briefly 
referred  to  is  Dr.  Emile  Francois  Julia's  La  Mori 
du  Soldat  (Perrin,  1918).  As  days  of  warfare 
are  added  to  days,  and  months  to  months,  and 
years  to  years,  the  admiration  of  this  soldier, 
who  is  also  a  thinker,  goes  less  to  the  great  gen- 
erals and  strategists  at  the  rear,  and  more  and 
more  to  the  men  in  the  field,  and  to  the  officers 
who  accompany  them:  to  the  fighting  soldiers, 
the  "soldats  soldatants."  Those  are  the  ones 
who  act ;  their  thinking  is  not  deep,  but  it  is 
adequate :  "as  for  us  we  do  our  duty,  that 's 
all"  {Xous  autres,  on  fait  son  devoir,  voila  tout). 

■'"">  YA^y^  sppnt  much  of  his  spare  time  in  reading,  and 
some  of  his  literary  appreciations  are  interesting.  For 
instance,  although  lie  is  very  far  from  being  irreligious, 
he  judges  with  severity  E.  Psichari's  Veill^e  dii  Centurion 
as  lacking  in  genuineness,  and  he  speaks  with  little  rev- 
erence of  L'Appel  des  Arines:  "That  one,"  he  says, 
"grates  terribly  on  mv  nerves." 
95 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

And  that  duty  is  to  defend  the  fields,  the  home, 
the  loved  ones,  and  also — for  the  soldier  realizes 
it,  though  only  vaguely  perhaps — "to  defend 
the  universal  conscience  which  Germany  has  out- 
raged." Julia's  hatred  of  war  is  as  deep,  per- 
haps  deeper,   than  that   of   earlier  writers   we 

have  mentioned.^^ 

*         *         * 

A  book  which  belongs  to  the  same  general 
class  as  the  preceding,  but  must  be  dealt  with 
separately  on  account  of  a  very  great  difference 
in  tone,  is  Georges  Bonnet's  L'Ame  d'un  Soldat. 
The  book  was  much  praised  hy  some  when  it 
came  out  early  in  1917,  but  it  has  since  fallen 
into  comparative  oblivion.  It  was  written  at  a 
time  when  the  war  had  lasted  a  few  months, 
but  not  long  enough  for  one  to  realize  what  an 
enormous  strain  it  would  put  upon  the  endur- 
ance of  France  and  her  allies;  at  a  time  when 
to  some  people  like  Romaih  Rolland,  an  attitude 

37  If  space  allowed,  here  would  be  the  place  to  study 
also  two  books  of  war  recollections  and  letters,  which  are 
interesting  as  coming  from  men  of  strongly  religious 
bent:  one  destined  to  become  a  Catholic  priest,  the  other 
a  Protestant  clergyman.  The  first  is  VAhhe  Chevoleau 
(Ambulancier) ,  caporal  au  90'  d'Infanterie,  by  Emile 
Bauman ;  the  other  is  Roger  AUier,  sous-lieutenant  au 
lie  Chasseurs  Alpins,  in  Memoriam  (1917);  they  are 
the  young  man's  letters  published  by  the  family.  Both 
died  during  the  war. 

96 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

of  detachment  seemed  a  mark  of  greatness;  in- 
deed, L'Ame  d'un  Soldat  seems  in  some  of  its 
parts,  to  be  a  kind  of  new  edition  of  Au-dessus 
de  la  Melee. 

The  author  discusses  the  mental  pictures 
which  people  have  formed  of  the  soldier  of  the 
great  war,  and  also  those  books  describing  the 
"soul  of  the  soldier,"  which  have  helped  to  form 
those  pictures.  The  attitude  of  a  judge  which 
Bonnet  assumes  and  evidentl}'  enjoys,  causes  the 
destructive  part  of  his  work  to  outweigh  the 
constructive.  His  business  is  to  destroy 
"legends."  Does  the  "heroic  soldier"  dear  to 
the  imagination  of  civilians  exist  ? — No !  Does 
the  conventional  ' '  Boche ' '  exist  ?  No  !  Is  there, 
as  some  have  said,  a  revival  of  the  religious 
spirit  among  soldiers? — No!  Some  maintain 
that  the  soldiers  now  despise  those  republican 
institutions  which  were  powerless  to  avert  war; 
is  it  true? — No!  .  .  .  And  yet,  after  this  holo- 
caust of  cherished  beliefs.  Bonnet  admits  that 
the  French  soldier  is  not  a  coward,  tliat  the 
Boche  is  not  always  gentle,  that  the  seriousness 
of  the  times  has  led  the  soldiers  to  give  thought 
to  the  mystery  of  human  destiny  and  to  the 
problem  of  death ;  he  admits  also  that  the  soldier 
hates  autocratic  rule,  etc.  .  .  .  All  considered, 
97 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Bonnet  is  simply  a  man  who  refuses  to  grow 
enthusiastic  over  paradoxes,  but  who,  at  the 
same  time,  does  not  wish  to  think  like  everybody 
else;  so  that  his  love  for  the  distinguo  prevents 
him  from  making  any  forceful  or  really  helpful 
statement.  He  does  not  even  deal  fairly  with 
the  questions  which  he  is  discussing.  For  in- 
stance, he  writes :  ' '  cruel,  '  unintelligent,  in- 
capable of  initiative,  always  ready  to  run  away 
from  danger,  such  is  the  classical  picture  of  the 
Boche. "  But  is  that  the  conception  generally 
accepted?  Surely  no  intelligent  man  ever  be- 
lieved it ;  there  was  therefore  no  need  for  a  long 
refutation  of  what  no  one  believed  who  really 
counts.^^  And  what  is  to  be  thought  of  the  fol- 
lowing commonplace? — ''Will  the  soldier,  when 
he  returns,  be  selfish  in  consequence  of  his  sol- 
dier 's  life  which  favors  self -centered  thoughts  ? ' ' 
— ''There  is  no  need  to  entertain  fear  on  that 
score,"  says  Bonnet,  "for  while  the  returning 
soldier  will  work  with  more  eagerness  for  him- 
self, he  will  be  better  able  to  contribute  indi- 
rectly to  the  general  welfare."  If,  therefore, 
Bonnet 's  book  has  not  the  dogmatic  tone  of  some 
other  war  time  publications    (see  Benda,  Lote, 

38  It  would  have  been  much  more  interesting  if  Bonnet 
had  named  some  of  the  books  at  which  he  was  aiming. 
98 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Sageret,  Lysis,  etc.,  in  the  following  chapter), 
neither  has  it  the  vigor  nor  the  originality  of 
these.  Bonnet  will  be  liked  by  people  who  have 
no  taste  for  strongly  expressed  opinions.  His 
book  affects  one  as  would  the  report  of  a 
psychologist  who,  watching  his  own  daughter  die, 
had  set  aside  his  paternal  sentiments  in  the  in- 
terests of  science.  If  Bonnet  is  not  a  monster  of 
indifference,  he  surely  cannot  escape  the  reproach 
of  being  an  insufferable  pedant. 

II.  Philosophical  Type — Second  Phase 

In  1917  the  war  entered  upon  a  new  phase. 
It  was  at  first  thought  that  it  would  last  a  few 
weeks,  then  a  few  months,  then  possibly  a  year, 
then  two  years,  then  three ;  until,  finally,  all 
attempts  to  guess  how  long  the  war  might  still 
last  were  given  up  for  fear  of  inability  to  bear 
another  disappointment.  Nerves  seemed  to  be 
the  only  thing  that  "kept  one  going";  and  at 
the  same  time  they  were  the  very  thing  that 
rendered  the  situation  unbearable. 

America  had  now  joined  the  Allies ;  but  it  was 
impossible  yet  to  gauge  the  time  or  the  extent  of 
her  cooperation  upon  the  battlefield.  Mean- 
while, the  submarines  wrought  havoc  on  the 
transportation  of  food  and  munitions;  and  the 
99 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

pacifists  were  wailing  out  their  sinister  gospel, 
helping  the  perpetrators  of  brutal  crime,  and 
doing  their  worst  to  dishearten  those  who  were 
fighting  for  justice. 

Literature,  of  course,  could  not  but  betray  the 
dreadful  state  of  mind  of  the  French  people. 
It  was  inconceivable  that  authors  should  retain 
a  calm  philosophical  attitude.  They  did  not. 
But  neither  did  they  wish  to  appear  to  be  weak- 
ening.— Better,  then,  say  nothing  at  all? — But, 
of  those  who  set  their  teeth  and  still  chose  to 
write,  some  made  their  readers  mistake  their 
grim  expression  of  suffering  for  a  smile,  while  a 
few  others  kept  on  describing  the  state  of  their 
souls ;  but  they  described  them  as  they  were,  i.e., 
as  keyed  up  to  a  point  which  seems  beyond  the 
powers  of  human  endurance;  they  showed  that 
their  capacity  for  pain  had  increased  by  long  and 
incessant  training,  so  that  their  system  had  be- 
come like  a  most  sensitive  instrument  registering 
even  infinitesimal  waves  of  pain  brought  about 
by  the  crudest  of  irresistible  and  senseless  fates. 
*         *         * 

Adrien  Bertrand  was  one  of  those  who  as- 
sumed the  tone  of  the  smiling  philosopher,  in 
the  volume  which  followed  his  alert  and  vigor- 
ous Appel  du  Sol     It  was  in  1918  that  appeared 
100 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

his  Orage  sur  le  Jardin  de  Candide,  a  book  of 
recollections  and  comments  in  the  form  of  phil- 
osophical essays  reminding  one  of  Diderot's 
Romans  or  Kenan's  Dialogues,  keen,  racy 
and  full  of  grace.  The  first  essay  is  in  tlie  form 
of  a  symposium  attended  by  Candide,  I'Abbe 
Coignard,  Vaissette  (of  the  Appel  du  Sol),  Pick- 
M'ick,  Don  Quixote,  Faust  (the  ''boche")  and 
Aehilles.  The  title  indicates  clearly  that  Ber- 
trand  was  attempting  the  Voltairian  style. 
What  did  he  mean?  Had  the  sincere  and  fear- 
less writer  really  become  a  cj'nic "?  No,  indeed, — 
for  intense  suffering  renders  superior  beings  bet- 
ter, not  worse ;  moreover,  after  all  the  appar- 
ently light  comments,  his  closing  word  uttered 
by  Candide  as  he  looks  at  the  devastated  garden 
is  Travaillons!  But  let  us  recall  the  circum- 
stances. Bertrand  had  been  wounded  beyond 
all  hope  of  recovery,^"  and  it  was  on  his  hospital 
cot,  and  in  the  full  consciousness  that  day  by  day 
his  life  was  ebbing,  that  he  wrote  his  Orage  sur 
le  Jardin  de  Candide:  he  knew  that  his  country- 
men had  hailed  him  as  one  of  the  promising  writ- 
ers of  younger  France ;  and  thus  he  was  passing 
away  with  fame,  sweet  fame,  ready  to  smile  upon 

^^  A   wound    in   tlie   chest    liad    been    followed   by   pul- 
monary tuberculosis  from  which  he  slowly  died. 
101 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

him.  To  assume  in  such  circumstances  the  style 
of  a  cjTiic  was  heroism!  It  was,  on  his  part, 
a  wager  with  death ;  a  wager  that  the  gloomy 
prospect  would  not  crush  his  spirit.  This  vol- 
ume reminds  one  of  the  cry  of  the  famous  stoic : 
"Pain,  Pain,  thou  dost  not  constrain  me  to  ad- 
mit that  thou  art  an  evil. ' '  *° 
*         *         * 

Some  one  might  perhaps  be  inclined  to  offer  as 
explanation  of  the  supercilious  tone  of  Bertrand 
(in  1918)  that  he  had  ceased  to  be  an  eye  wit- 
ness of  the  horrors  of  the  battlefields.  We  do 
not  think  that  that  explanation  could  be  re- 
garded as  psychologically  sound,  in  view  of  the 
ever  present  image  of  impending  death.  At 
any  rate  such  an  argument  would  not  hold  in  the 
case  of  the  best  example  of  that  kind  of  writing, 
Jean  Giraudoux's  Lectures  pour  une  Omhre 
(1918)." 

Giraudoux  had  signed  in  1912  a  book  which 
had  the  grace  and  elusiveness  of  morning  mists ; 
its  humor  consistently  light,  was  sometimes  keen, 

40  After  his  death  a  book  of  verse  by  Adrien  Bertrand 
was  published,  Yierge  de  Cypris,  of  which  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  say  with  certainty  whether  it  was  written  before 
or  after  the  commencement  of  the  war. 

41  The  book  is  dedicated  to  "Andre  Dufresnois,  dis- 
parii,"  who  is  probably  the  "shade"  for  whom  the  "read- 
ings" were  prepared. 

102 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

but  more  often  subtle;  it  was  appropriately 
called  L'Ecole  des  Indifferents.  Since  and 
throughout  the  war,  Giraudoux  maintained  that 
same  attitude  of  detachment.  His  Lectures 
pour  tine  Ombre  are  neither  boisterous  nor  grim, 
nor  do  they  depend  for  their  effectiveness  on  any 
exaggeration.  If  at  any  time  he  shared  the  emo- 
tions of  France  and  of  the  rest  of  the  world,  he 
does  not  betray  them. 

At  the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  he  joined  his 
regiment  and  went  through  the  tragic  first  six 
weeks  of  the  war  with  a  smile  on  his  face.  The 
trials  of  the  flesh  seem  to  have  been  non-existent 
for  him  ;  in  the  midst  of  blood,  fire,  mud,  and  the 
roaring  of  guns,  he  remained  perfectly  serene. 

Giraudoux  made  notes  on  the  battlefield,  but 
did  not  however  write  his  story  until  later,  after 
"years  in  the  trenches"  (p.  281).  And  this  is 
indeed  the  miracle:  that  he  could  have  lived 
through  three  years  of  horror  after  the  first  six 
weeks  of  the  war,  without  changing  anj^hing  in 
his  attitude,  and  should  even  then  be  able  to  re- 
count the  story  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne  with- 
out any  trace  of  emotion,  just  as  if  he  were  de- 
scribing an  evening  spent  at  the  Palais  Royal. 
Giraudoux  tells  us  himself  that  he  took  down  in 
telegraphic  style  the  report  from  the  General 
103 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Staff  to  his  unit  on  Sept.  6th,  1914  (we  refer  to 
Joffre's  famous  order  of  the  day),  but  that  he 
was:  "not  particularly  moved  by  it,  for  we  are 
used  to  receiving,  like  a  telegraph  clerk,  all  sorts 
of  orders  of  the  day"  (p.  170).  We  must  admit 
that — extraordinary  as  it  may  sound — the  whole 
book  impresses  one  as  genuine;  there  is  nothing 
in  it  that  would  justify  a  suspicion  of  pose,  or 
of  desire  "d'epater  le  bourgeois";  nor  is  the 
tone  cynical.  It  would  seem  as  if,  really,  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  stirring  events,  Giraudoux 
found  a  sort  of  sly  satisfaction  in  calmly  noting 
down  the  drolleries  of  the  situation.  ' '  The  Ger- 
man trenches  are  only  a  few  yards  in  front  of 
ours.  It  is  raining  death.  Jalicot,  just  to  tease 
the  Germans,  shouts  to  them:  'Surrender!  give 
your  answer  in  French  so  that  there  may  be  no 
misunderstanding ! '  The  Germans,  who,  accord- 
ing to  their  habit,  took  the  challenge  in  all  seri- 
ousness, answered  by  an  earnest:  Non!  Non! 
then  they  shouted  to  us  to  surrender,  and  we 
answered  in  chorus,  using,  all  of  us,  one  and  the 
same  word :  m  .  .  . !  And  they  were  very  much 
annoyed  because  they  had  answered  politely" 
(p.  236).  Another  time  Giraudoux  finds  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  wounded  men  begging  pa- 
thetically for  relief.  He  has  nothing  to  say  of 
104 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

their  distressing  appeals,  but  he  notices  a  young 
theologian  who,  believing  in  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  dares  not  use  the  words  "I  am  dying," 
in  endeavoring  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
doctor,  so  prefers  to  say:  "I  exist  no  more!  I 
am  ceasing  to  exist!"  (p.  239).  When  Girau- 
doux  rises  in  the  morning,  his  mind  full  of  the 
previous  day's  fighting,  and  with  the  certainty 
of  more  fighting  to  come  (for  this  takes  place 
during  the  battle  of  the  Marne),  he  admires  the 
sunrise  and  calmly  describes  it:  "A  fine  day. 
The  fact  once  admitted  that  one  has  to  get  up, 
one  ought  to  judge  of  the  weather  without  prej- 
udice. The  sun  leaps  from  cloud  to  cloud;  the 
cloud  that  contains  it  is  bathed  in  gold.  The 
sky  is  light  blu.,  with  deep  blue  patches.  Au- 
tumn continues  to  pluck  one  by  one  the  yellow 
leaves  from  the  elm  trees,  while  at  each  moment, 
great  limbs  are  torn  off  by  passing  shells"  (p. 
241).  And  after  the  victory  has  been  won, 
when  the  troops  pass  through  the  reconquered 
villages,  and  the  people  come  out  to  greet  them 
with  every  sign  of  intense  joy,  and  with  tears  of 
gratitude,  Giraudoux  again  has  eyes  and  ears 
mainly  for  odd  incidents:  "A  blind  is  cau- 
tiously opened  and  the  head  of  a  sister  of  charity 
appears  at  the  window."  When  the  good  sister 
105 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

recognizes  the  uniforms  of  the  French  soldiers, 
she  flings  up  her  arms  and  exclaims :  "lis  sont 
partis,  les  eochons !  ils  sont  partis!"  (p.  271). 
In  another  place,  girls  come  out  and  pour  bottles 
of  perfume  on  the  soldiers'  hands,  and,  when  al- 
lowed to  do  so,  on  their  heads;  while  a  woman 
hands  to  the  soldiers,  through  a  cellar  window, 
pots  of  jam,  cheese,  and  other  victuals;  some 
even  thought  that  the  soldiers  would  appreciate 
"eau  de  botot"  for  cleansing  the  teeth  (p.  278). 

That  is  the  tone  of  that  astonishing  version 
of  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  which  would  surely 
have  surprised  even  the  author  of  The  Ring  and 
the  Book. 

Let  us  repeat  that  this  kind  of  style  is  evi- 
dently a  paradox ;  but  it  is  surely  an  heroic  para- 
dox. For  it  requires  a  remarkable  amount  of 
self-control,  of  indomitable  individuality,  to  go 
through  the  experiences  of  Giraudoux  without 
becoming  infuriated  or  mad  or  melancholy  or 
sick  with  disgust  or  even  heroic  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  term;  so  that,  while  the  book  pro- 
duces on  the  reader  a  sensation  which  is  abso- 
lutely siii  generis,  and  while  it  affords  curious 
reading,  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  in  no 
wise  moving.^^ 

42  Since  the  publication  of  Lectures  pour  une  Ombre, 
lOG 


PEKIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Among  the  expressions  of  a  sensibility  which 
has  become  almost  morbid  through  an  excess  of 
moral  suffering,  Andre  Fribourg's  Croire,  His- 
toire  d'un  Soldat,  should  be  singled  out  as  of  the 
very  best.*^ 

Craire,  like  Le  Feu,  is  the  story  of  a  squad,  but 
the  reaction  of  the  author  of  Croire  is  not  that 
of  an  emotional  artist  in  whom  suft'ering  arouses 
revolt ;  it  is  that  of  a  sensitive  soul  of  the  Pascal 
type,  who  understands  that  man's  capacity  for 
suffering  is  the  sign  of  his  greatness:  '"L'homme 
n'est  qu'un  roseau,  le  plus  faible  de  la  nature, 
mais  c'est  un  roseau  pensant.  II  ne  faut  pas 
que  tout  I'univers  s'arme  your  I'ecraser.  Une 
vapeur,  une  goutte  d'eau  suffit  pour  le  tuer. 
Mais  quand  I'univers  I'ecraserait,  I'homme  serait 

Giraudoux  has  written  a  little  book  entitled  Arnica 
America;  it  is  illustrated  and  was  published  by  Emile 
Paul,  Paris.  In  1918,  he  published  a  novel  which  was 
written  before  the  war  and  which  bears  the  title:  Simon 
le  Pathetique.  Tlie  reader  will  scarcely  need  to  be  told 
that  the  word  "pathetique"  is  to  be  taken  cum  grano 
salis. 

*3  Croire  was  awarded  the  Prix  Sobrier-Arnould  in 
1918,  and  the  same  year  the  Academie  des  Sciences,  Mor- 
ales et  Politiques  awarded  the  Prix  Audiffred  to  Fri- 
bourg's Les  Martyrs  d' Alsace  et  de  Lorraine,  d'apres  les 
debats  des  conseils  de  guerre  allemands  (1916).  In  1918 
he  published  another  historical  work,  Le  Poing  Allemand 
en  Lorraine  et  en  Alsace  (1S71,  1914,  191S),  10,000 
copies  of  which  work  were  sold  in  a  very  short  time. 
His  previous  works  dealt  mainly  with  the  history  of  the 
French  Revolution. 

107 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

encore  plus  noble  que  ee  qui  le  tue,  parce  qu'il 
salt  qu'il  meurt,  et  I'avantage  que  I'univers  a 
sur  lui,  I'univers  n'en  sait  rien.  Toute  notre 
dignite  consiste  done  dans  la  pensee.  ..." 

Fribourg  repeats  words  of  protest  and  of  re- 
volt ;  but  he  searches  deepl}^  what  caused  them, 
and  he  always  has  a  sympathetic  attitude,  for 
to  know  all  is  to  forgive  all.  Moreover,  those 
outbursts  of  despair  are  only  temporary;  the 
good  side,  the  lofty,  heroic  side  of  human  nature 
always  asserts  itself;  often  it  manifests  itself  in 
the  form  of  la  gaiete  franqaise  which  assumes  un- 
der Fribourg 's  pen  a  deep  significance.  The 
book  offers  painful  reading  at  times.  Fri- 
bourg's  masterly  pen  carries  the  reader  along 
and  makes  him  live  in  imagination  through  those 
hours  of  absolute  exhaustion  resulting  from  fa- 
tigue, cold  food,  and  the  everlasting  dampness 
of  the  trenches.  One  must  read  those  pages  de- 
scribing the  depressing  effect  produced  by  hour 
after  hour,  day  after  day  of  incessant  rain  (pp. 
86-90)  ;  and  also  the  description  of  the  mourn- 
ful hours  of  waiting  in  the  trenches,  where  the 
soldier,  perfectly  helpless  under  fire,  yet  per- 
fectly conscious  of  his  situation,  lives  in  hourly 
expectation  of  death.  .  .  .  ''After  fourteen 
hours,  death  is  still  here.  It  plays  with  us, 
108 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

brushes  against  us,  withdraws,  comes  back,  leaps 
to  the  rig-ht,  hurls  itself  to  the  left,  growls  to  the 
rear,  then  rises,  flaming,  in  front  of  us.  .  .  .  Min- 
ute after  minute  bombs  and  shells  explode.  .  .  . 
How  sad  is  that  death  which  threatens  us.  The 
consciousness  of  our  individual  impotence  is 
crushing.  .  .  .  How  could  we  strive  against  the 
omnipotent  machine,  against  that  tearing  force 
which,  within  the  next  second,  perhaps,  will 
blindly  scatter  the  fragments  of  our  bodies? 
This  is  not  the  war  of  which  we  dreamed  in 
August,  a  cheerful  singing  war  in  the  broad  sun- 
shine !  We  had  hoped  for  epic  contests,  and 
we  are  going  to  die,  ground  to  dust  by  iron 
shards,  thrown  by  an  invisible  hand,  at  the  bot- 
tom of  a  ditch,  in  the  mud"  (pp.  135-6).  One 
must  read  also  the  terrible  episode  of  the  sol- 
dier whose  mind  suddenly  gives  way  under  the 
stress  of  waiting  and  whose  mad  cries  may  be- 
tray to  the  enemy  the  presence  of  the  squad  so 
that  his  friends  are  obliged  to  seize  him  and  gag 
him  lest  he  should  bring  upon  them  all  a  certain 
and  immediate  death  (pp.  128-130)  ;  or  again 
the  description  of  the  attack  in  which  300  men 
set  out  and  only  four  returned. 

The  originality  of  Croire,  however,  lies  in  the 
theory  which  it  expounds.     The  title  and  sub- 

lon 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

title  expresses  it  well.  Croire,  histoire  d'un  sol- 
dat.  Without  knowing  it,  the  French  soldier 
had  set  out  in  obedience  to  a  noble  impulse.  Of 
this  he  became  clearly  conscious  only  very  grad- 
ually, through  the  medium  of  the  sufferings 
which  he  was  made  to  endure.  But  from  the  be- 
ginning he  was  loyal,  even  from  before  the  be- 
ginning. As  early  as  1911,  the  German  menace 
had  prepared  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  soldier 
for  the  events  of  1914.  This  is  remarkably  well 
brought  out  in  the  Prelude  to  the  War  Diary, 
Aux  Manoeuvres  d'Argo7ine,  Pendant  I'e  Coup 
d'Agadir.  Fribourg  assures  us  that  he  has 
therein  reproduced  his  notes  as  he  took  them 
down  on  the  spot.  Pacifism  was  in  those  years 
rampant  in  the  army ;  the  men  made  no  secret  of 
their  feelings  in  the  matter  and  openly  expressed 
their  detestation  of  war.  Fribourg  is  careful  to 
emphasize  this  fact.  Each  time  that  anything 
annoyed  them,  they  would  noisily  protest :  ' '  Ah  ! 
they'll  never  catch  me  here  again,  never!  never! 
When  I  get  out  of  it,  I'll  make  a  bee  line  for 
London,  and  make  a  declaration  that  I  intend 
to  take  up  my  residence  permanently  there !  .  .  . 
I'm  sick  of  it!"  (p.  17).  Or  .  .  .  "Morocco  be 
damned!" — "I'll  not  go  and  get  my  face 
smashed  by  the  Germans" — "Let  the  capitalist 
110 


PEEIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

bosses  do  the  job  if  they  want  it  done!"  (p.  24). 
Or  again  when  a  cyclist  is  jokingly  told  by  one 
of  his  fellows  that  his  helmet  gives  him  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  Prussian,  "Prussian  or  French- 
man," he  ans\Yers  without  the  slightest  hesita- 
tion, "one  is  as  good  as  the  other!"  (p.  28). 

And  yet,  at  bottom,  they  did  care;  they  felt 
the  thrill  of  marching  through  the  villages  at  the 
sound  of  the  band.  A  great  wave  of  love  of 
France  and  of  liberty  came  over  them  as  they 
rehearsed  a  charge;  and  when  they  saw  the  ad- 
mirable manoeuvering  of  the  artillery  and  of  the 
aircraft,  they  felt  a  pride  at  belonging  to  the 
army  of  France.  .  .  .  And  when  the  evening  pa- 
pers brought  unpleasant  news  concerning  the 
Morocco  situation,  the  spirit  of  the  poilus  of  1914 
was  already  manifest  in  the  tone  in  which  they 
said:  "Those  fellows  are  getting  on  our  nerves 
at  last!" 

That  sporadic  feeling  had  grown  and  was 
ready  for  its  full  expression  when  the  call  to 
arms  came  in  August,  1914.  Once  more,  in  Fri- 
bourg,  we  have  a  confirmation  of  the  oft  re- 
peated statement  that  France  was  fully  con- 
scious of  what  was  happening,  in  the  description 
of  the  fateful  minutes  of  farewell,  of  tragic  si- 
lent, heroic  farewell.  ' '  Moments  which  resemble 
111 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

no  others.  ...  I  know  that  I  am  living  through 
an  experience  infinitely  great  and  infinitely  rare; 
a  flash  which  will  illumine  and  sanctify  a  life 
to  its  last  moment;  I  know  that  one  never  can 
feel  again  such  emotions  as  those  which  are  fill- 
ing my  heart ;  and  yet,  all  at  once,  in  the  midst  of 
my  joy,  an  unlooked-for  anguish  lay  hold  of  me ; 
it  is  short,  indefinite ;  for  I  have  thought  that 
the  enthusiastic  songs  which  sweep  over  the  har- 
vest fields  are  proclaiming  that  lovely  peace  is 
dead,  that  her  form  is  even  now  being  wrapped 
in  a  shroud"  (p.  43). 

Now  we  come  to  the  war  itself.  After  the  first 
long  taste  of  it,  after  weeks  had  been  spent  in 
that  deadly  Bois  des  Chevaliers,  when  the  men 
have  learned  what  war  really  means,*the  exalta- 
tion of  the  first  moments  yields  to  resignation, 
but  a  resignation  which  one  accepts  only  because 
it  ennobles;  it  is  the  gift  which  comes  to  those 
who  know  the  worth  of  sacrifice. 

''War,  thou  art  an  act  of  faith  and  of  renunci- 
ation. .  .  .  War,  we  have  given  up  everything 
to  thee :  wife,  and  family,  and  our  heart,  and 
more  than  that,  our  minds  of  which  we  were  so 
proud.  W^ar,  we  have  endured,  in  obedience  to 
thy  law,  humiliations,  mortifications,  suffering; 
112 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

our  life  is  naught  but  watching  and  fasting  and 
silence;  we  have  become,  for  duty's  sake,  poor, 
equal  and  chaste;  we  are  struggling  against  the 
cold,  against  the  mud,  against  the  gloomy  power 
of  shells;  we  are  scourged  with  bullets;  the 
thought  of  death  is  ever  with  us;  like  Trappists 
w^e  bury  our  dead  brethren,  and  in  digging  our 
trenches  we  arc  preparing  our  own  graves. 
War,  who  teaehest  without  willing  it  the  good 
and  the  horror  of  force,  thou  art  full  of  sadness 
and  of  greatness,  of  supreme  jo.^-s  and  of  bitter 
despair ;  thou  art  a  fiery  trial  which  kills  or  pur- 
ifies ;  tliou  bringest  new  men  out  of  thy  crucible 
and  thou  savest  them  while  they,  through  their 
sacrifice,  redeem  their  brethren  who  fight  not, 
as  also  the  disasters  which  overtook  their  fathers, 
the  impotence  of  the  weak  and  the  faults  of  the 
dead"  (p.  149-150). 

And  the  book  closes  with  a  confession  of  faith ; 
a  confession  which  comes  as  a  refrain  in  each 
chapter,  and  which  becomes  more  and  more  def- 
inite each  time,  yet  remains  so  broad  that  all 
faiths  are  included  in  it:  "Let  us  learn  how 
to  love,  to  suffer  and  to  die,  that  is,  let  us  learn 
to  believe.  Let  us  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the 
term  believe,  like  the  martyrs  of  all  causes;  like 
113 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

those  believed  who  were  first  to  fall  in  August, 
1914,  who  went  to  their  death  with  songs  upon 
their  lips"  (p.  252). 

The  word  "believe"  as  used  by  Fribourg  is 
very  plain  and  simple,  but  it  grips  one  in  a 
strange  manner  as  one  proceeds  with  the  read- 
ing. At  first  the  reader  gathers  no  clear  concep- 
tion of  what  is  implied  in  the  smooth  running 
text,  but  it  all  becomes  clear  to  him  when  he 
turns  to  the  last  chapter. 

The  man  who  wrote  Croire  had  left  for  the  war 
full  of  health  and  strength;  he  was  discharged 
in  September;  1915,  and  returned  with  sight, 
smell  and  taste  considerably  impaired.  He  had 
to  set  about  reeducating  himself  with  touch  and 
hearing  as  almost  the  only  senses.  The  reference 
to  his  return  to  his  class  work  in  Paris,  his  meet- 
ing with  the  youths  whom  he  had  taught  before 
the  war  forms  one  of  the  most  pathetic  passages 
of  the  book.  No  attempt  was  made  either  by 
teacher  or  pupils  to  express  in  words  the  emotion 
of  the  reunion ;  but  the  substance  of  many  elo- 
quent and  moving  speeches  was  conveyed  by  the 
attitude,  the  very  silence  of  the  pupis.  It 
was  evident  that  all  knew  what  had  happened, 
but  that  all  felt  that  it  was  a  matter  too  delicate, 
too  sacred  for  words,  and  that  silence  was  the 
114 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

best  and  onl}'  adequate  medium  to  express  all 
the  complex  emotions  of  the  moment.  One  can- 
not help  thinking,  in  reading  that  premiere 
classe  of  Fribourg,  of  the  well  known  and  touch- 
ing derniere  classe  of  Daudet.^* 
*         *         * 

The  second, — and  the  best  type  of  book  of  this 
kind, — though  affording  even  more  painful  read- 
ing than  Croire,  is  Henry  Malherbe's  La  Flamme 
au  Poing  (1917).^= 

]\Ialherbe  analyzes  the  state  of  mind  of  the  sol- 
dier who  has  reached  the  limits  of  human  endur- 
ance, and  who  yet,  by  some  super-physical  force, 
still  manages  to  "keep  going."  The  author's 
naturally  sensitive  soul  has  become  distressingly 
so  after  three  years  of  strain.  In  this  work  the 
reader  will  find  no  more  references  to  the  pangs 
of  hunger,   the   painfulness   of  wounds   or  the 

4*  Fribourp  is  professor  of  History  and  Geography  at 
the  College  Chaptal,  Paris. 

*5This  work  was  awarded  the  Prix  Goncourt  for  1917. 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the  men  who  award  that  much 
coveted  prize  have  shown  really  wonderful  skill  in  select- 
ing each  time,  if  not  necessarily  the  intrinsically  best 
book  of  the  year,  yet  the  best  representative  of  the 
special  nuance  of  literary  evolution.  Their  choice  for 
1915  was  Benjamin's  Gaspard;  for  1910,  it  was  both 
Bertrand's  Appel  du  Sol  and  Barbusse's  Le  Feu 
(there  were  two  in  1916  because  one  was  left  over  from 
1914)  ;  for  1917,  La  Flamme  au  Foing ;  and  we  shall  see 
that  their  choice  for  1918  was  no  less  happy. 
115 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

feeling  of  physical  exhaustion  which  earlier 
writers  so  frequently  insisted  upon  who  wanted 
to  make  their  non-combatant  readers  realize 
that  heroism  consists  less  in  spiritual  exaltation 
than  in  the  endurance  of  material  privation  and 
in  the  exertion  of  physical  strength.  It  is  not 
that  Malherbe  ignores  or  denies  the  reality  of 
these  things,  but  rather  that  he  has  ceased  to  suf- 
fer as  a  physical  being,  because  the  tortures  of 
his  mind  are  so  much  greater.  There  is  some- 
thing truly  Dantesque  in  those  pictures  of  tor- 
tures of  the  flesh,  which  have  become  to  him 
merely  symbols  of  moral  pain.  He  lives  in  the 
company  of  abstract  beings:  Memories,  Love, 
Death,  which  haunt  him,  which  are  themselves 
but  pale  reflections  of  some  metaphysical  real- 
ity :  "Our  actions  during  these  months  of  agony 
are  not  prompted  by  our  poor  little  human 
selves,  but  by  some  higher  power";  and  the  sol- 
dier of  the  Great  War  is  resigned  not  to  under- 
stand :  "we  are  working  at  some  mysterious  task 
which  must  surely  be  very  great ;  when  shall  we 
be  worthy  or  clear-sighted  enough  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  hidden  motive  of  all  the  violence 
that  is  done  us?"  (p.  85). 

He  is  haunted  by  gruesome  memories  of  the 
battlefield  which  are  more  than  he  can  bear. 
116 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

What  should  he  do?  "Can  it  be,  oh  my  lost 
friends,  my  tonnented  brothers,  that  some  day  I 
shall  forget  your  features,  and  the  untold  sac- 
rifices which  ye  made,  poor  heroes !  ...  No !  I 
feel  that  I  must  keep  in  mind  those  pictures  and 
portraits,  so  fresh,  so  perfect  in  their  brilliant 
and  bitter  realism  that  they  cannot  be  dimmed 
by  any  nightmare  or  am^  vision  of  feverish  brain. 
But  I  cannot,  I  dare  not,  describe  with  accuracy 
all  that  distress;  it  passes  the  strength  of  my 
heart,  my  poor  heart  torn  with  pity,  and  over- 
whelmed with  grief.  And,  I  confess  it,  I  am 
afraid  that  too  real  an  evocation  of  those  scenes 
would  make  me  live  over  again  those  days  of 
ferocity  and  death"  (p.  58).  .  .  .  "Oh!  that  I 
might  escape  from  these  infernal  regions!"  (p. 
96).  .  .  .  "Who  are  those  sly,  criminal,  shame- 
lessly cruel  enemies?  Are  we  fighting  against 
armies  or  maniacs?"  (p.  99).  So  used  have  the 
soldiers  become  to  living  in  this  atmosphere  of 
death,  that  they  also  are  as  dead  men. 

Malherbe's  pictures— as  has  been  said — are 
not  real  in  the  sense  of  faithfully  reproducing 
what  he  has  witnessed;  rather  are  they  images 
meant  to  evoke  in  the  mind  the  tortures  of  his 
soul.  The  reader  may  like  to  read  some  samples 
of  that  style.  Sometimes  he  attributes  even  to 
117 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

inanimate  objects  a  capacity  for  moral  suffering, 
as,  for  instance,  in  his  descriptions  of  tlie  dev- 
astated villages:  "Here  are  some  wrecked 
homes,  sadly  surprised  to  see  their  wounds  re- 
flected in  the  running  stream;  there,  some  old 
homesteads  to  the  battered  roofs  of  which  some 
red  tiles  still  cling :  infinitely  pathetic  old  dames, 
they  seem,  shaking  with  the  palsy  and  groaning 
with  pain,  their  heads  wrapped  in  their  red 
plaid  kerchiefs.  And  farther  on,  silhouetted 
against  the  angry  sky,  are  the  pitiable  and 
battered  forms  of  limping  and  rusty  plows 
and  broken  carts  and  wagons.  And  all  these 
things  move  one  as  if  they  were  living  beings 
kneeling  down  before  one,  bewailing  their  sor- 
rows and  begging  for  pity  or  for  revenge" 
(p.  62). 

And  here  are  a  few  other  characteristic 
sketches : 

"A  304  fell  among  us.  It  crashed  through 
one  house  without  exploding,  passed  through  the 
wall  of  another  and  burst.  Of  the  sixty  men 
who  were  there,  thirty  were  killed  or  wounded. 
One  man  was  cut  in  two  through  the  stomach. 
He  crawled  away  on  his  hands  in  a  river  of 
blood,  leaving  behind  him  the  other  half  of  his 
body,  and  howling  as  he  went.  .  .  ."  (p.  83^). 
118 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

"They  told  the  captain  not  to  venture  out,  for 
the  fort  was  being  heavil}'  shelled :  'Wait ! '  they 
said.  But  he  answered ;  '  No  matter,  we  must 
relieve  our  comrades  who  must  be  exhausted  by 
this  time.  Forward  ! '  And  they  went,  A  210 
shell  fell  right  among  the  company ;  thirtj'  men 
were  killed  outright.  The  captain's  head  was 
found  four  days  later"  (p.  93). 

"A  miserable  grave  marked  by  a  cross  made  of 
two  sticks;  and  on  it  the  inscription:  Zouave? f 
Chasseur? f"  A  first  time  the  corpse  was  bur- 
ied ;  a  shell  unearthed  it.  They  buried  it  again. 
A  second  shell  brought  it  out  once  more.  There 
was  a  third  burial  at  the  hands  of  sad,  pious, 
devoted  comrades.  But  a  third  shell  has  again 
thrown  into  the  air  those  ghastly  remains.  And 
now  they  call  him  the  Clown.  When  shells  fall 
round,  and  they  see  mud  and  bones  thrown  up, 
they  say:  'Why,  there's  Gugusse  on  the  jump 
once  more ! ' — What  malediction  is  pursuing 
that  unknown  soldier?"    (pp.  168-9). 

And  then  in  chapter  XVIII  {The  Descent  into 
Hell) ,  he  tells  of  an  officer  who  has  lived  through 
such  a  succession  of  hideous  scenes,  that  he  ac- 
tually believes  that  he  has  sojourned  in  hell  and 
has  learned  many  things  unknown  to  ordinary 
119 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

mortals:  "I  know  that  I  shall  not  return  after 
the  war.  What  is  even  more  tragic  is  that  I 
recognize  those  who  are  marked  for  death  as  I 
am,  all  of  whom  will  be  to-morrow  my  comrades 
beneath  the  ground"  (pp.  206-7). 

In  September,  1918,  Malherbe  published,  in 
La  Grande  Revue,  Le  Jugement  Dernier.  It  is 
a  remarkable  piece  of  poetry  in  prose:  the  rev- 
erie of  a  soldier  from  the  moment  that  he  real- 
izes that  he  must  die  of  his  wounds,  to  the  mo- 
ment of  his  passing  away.  It  is — if  we  may  so 
speak — a  piece  of  soul-vivisection.  He  takes  the 
suggestion  made  him  by  the  surgeon,  that  he 
should  go  home  to  die.  There,  as  one  already 
dead,  he  communicates  with  those  whom  he  has 
left  behind  .  .  .  mother  .  .  .  wife  .  .  .  child  .  .  . 
brother  and  friend.  He  also  sees  passing  before 
him  his  past  life.  He  sees  himself  at  the  age 
of  fifteen  when  his  mind  timidly  began  to  work ; 
then  at  twenty  when  his  thoughts  are  filled  with 
love  dreams  (Fernande,  Margot,  Sophie,  Made- 
leine) ;  and  again  at  thirty  on  the  eve  of  the  war. 
Finally,  he  describes  his  absorption  into  Na- 
ture, he  feels  himself  melting  and  vanishing  into 
the  great  mysterious  All.  .  .  .  He  finds  it  diffi- 
cult to  realize  his  connection  with  the  infernal 
120' 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

realities  of  the  ^larne  and  of  Verdun  j  and  yet 
it  was  his  experiences  of  the  battlefield  that  had 
delivered  his  soul  from  the  thraldom  of  things 

material.*® 

*         *         * 

Malherbe's  book  reveals  the  intensity  of  moral 
agony  which  the  war  has  brought  to  a  man  of 
refinement  and  culture  like  himself  (as  Fribourg 
had  done,  though  less  despairingly,  in  Croire). 
But  Dr.  Georges  Duhamel  has  made  himself  the 
interpreter  of  the  so-called  lower  classes;  he  has 
shown  in  them  an  equal  capacity  for  intense 
moral  suffering  which  reveals  refinement  of  feel- 
ing not  generally  attributed  to  people  in  that 
station  of  life.  His  Vie  des  Martyrs  has  there- 
fore been  greeted  as  one  of  the  finest  war  books, 
one  of  the  most  "poignant." 

Physicians,  indeed,  occupy  a  prominent  place 
among  the  writers  who  have  made  valuable  and 
reliable  contributions  to  the  literature  of  the  war. 
In  a  general  way,  one  can  say  that  phj'sicians 
form    one    of    the    most    cultivated    classes    in 

■46  The  reader  may  be  interested  in  still  another  book 
of  sorrows:  Andre  Delemer,  Pelerin  MutiU,  blesse  de 
Vauquois  (1918).  In  this  book,  the  author  expresses, — 
with  outbursts  of  bitterness  at  times. — his  despair  at 
seeing  his  life  broken  by  his  mutilation.  The  story  is 
told  of  a  lady  who  fainted  when  some  passages  of  this 
book  were  read  to  her. 

121 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

France,  which  fact,  combined  with  the  excep- 
tional opportunities  that  they  have  of  observ- 
ing human  nature  when  stripped  of  the  veils  of 
conventionality  and  the  masks  of  civilization, 
renders  their  testimony  unusually  authoritative. 
They  are  more  accustomed  than  others  to  wit- 
nessing dramas  which  are  not  comedies,  and  dis- 
plays of  cowardice — or  maybe  of  courage — in  the 
presence  of  death,  or  at  the  operating  table ;  this 
renders  them  more  moderate  than  others  in  their 
appreciation  of  war  scenes.  They  are  not  so 
likely  to  overestimate  the  influence  of  present 
events  on  the  human  machine,  because  they,  of 
all  people,  are  in  a  position  to  judge  when  and 
where  the  war  has.  added  something  to  human 
reactions. 

Quite  naturally,  these  men  have  felt  that  they 
had  something  to  say  which  was  worth  saying, 
even  if  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  military  opera- 
tions or  with  episodes  of  an  epic  character. 

A  number  of  physicians,  therefore,  have  writ- 
ten books  which  have  been  widely  read.  Among 
them  are  Le  Courage  (Alcan,  1917)  and  Le  Ca- 
fard  (Grasset,  1918)  by  Drs.  L.  Huot  and  P. 
Voivenel.  But  those  two  works  are  of  a  sci- 
entific, rather  than  of  a  literary  character. 
Then,  there  is  Leopold  Chauveau's  Derriere  la 
122 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Bataille  (1917)  a  valuable  collection  of  episodes 
from  ambulance  and  hospital:  snapshots,  as  it 
were,  of  Keratro,  the  Breton,  with  a  fractured 
skull;  of  Renard,  whose  Herculean  chest  has 
been  torn  by  shrapnel;  of  Leroy  who  is  ever 
cheerful  and  hearty  in  spite  of  his  crushed  leg; 
of  Cazalis  who  comes  from  Nice  and  howls  even 
before  he  is  touched ;  and  of  Massou,  the  canni- 
bal from  Algeria,  a  big,  trustful,  but  unbearable 
child.  Facts  are  allowed  to  speak  for  them- 
selves; sometimes  they  are,  of  course,  very  de- 
pressing, but  sometimes,  too,  they  are  comfort- 
ing; for  nothing  has  yet  been  found  that  is  so 
true  a  criterion  of  human  nature  as  the  way  in 
which  sorrow  and  pain  are  endured.  There  is 
also  La  Marsouille  ■*'  by  Paul  Fielle,  to  which 
Dr.  G.  Dumas  contributes  a  preface  (1917)  ; 
and  IJn  Medecin  de  France,  Lettres  d'un  Me- 
decin  Auxiliaire,  31  juillet  1914-14  avril  1917, 
with  a  preface  by  E.  Boutroux  (1919). 

But  Duhamel  has  won  undisputed  preemi- 
nence among  physicians  who  are  also  writers. 
Long  before  the  war,  he  was  well  known  in  the 
realm  of  letters.  He  was  one  of  that  group  of 
writers  and  artists  who,  ten  years  ago,  had  ar- 

47  "Marsouille"   is  the  nickname   given   to   the   ambu- 
lancers  who  pick  up  the  wounded  on  the  battlefield. 
123 


FEENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ranged  to  live  together  in  the  communistic  col- 
ony "I'Abbaye,"— a  kind  of  French  "Brook 
Farm," — so  as  to  stimulate  each  other  in  their 
artistic  efforts.  Among  his  associates  were  men 
like  Jules  Romain,  author  of  La  Vie  Uiianime; 
Ch.  Vildrac,  author  of  Livre  d' Amour;  Rene  Ar- 
cos;  and  others.  Duhamel  had  occasionally 
written  for  the  stage ;  his  La  Lumiere  was  pro- 
duced at  the  Odeon,  and  his  Le  Combat,  at  the 
Theatre  des  Arts.  He  had  also  written  two 
small  volumes  of  poetry:  Des  Legendes,  des  Ba- 
tailles,  and  Compagnons;  and  two  volumes  of 
critical  essays :  Propos  Critiques  and  Les  Poetes 
et  la  Poesie.  He  was  especially  interested  in  the 
new  technique  of  versification,  and  was  regarded 
as  an  authority  on  Vers  lihres.  It  was  for  this 
reason  that  he  was  appointed  reviewer  of  poetry 
for  the  Mercure  de  France  in  succession  to  Pierre 
Quillard. 

The  war  was  to  reveal  to  Duhamel  a  new  world 
and  to  turn  the  poet  and  the  physician  within 
him  into  a  philosopher.  He  was  by  no  means 
naturally  addicted  to  emotionalism :  a  fact  which 
lends  authority  to  his  estimate  of  the  French 
soldier.  The  "sweet  reasonableness"  of  his 
book  makes  it  a  most  effective  antidote  to  the 
sinister  pessimism  of  Barbusse's  Le  Few,  as  well 
124 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

as  to  that  shallow  optimism  of  the  authors  aimed 
at  by  Barbusse,  who  dipped  their  pens  in  sub- 
limity, and  saw  in  every  French  soldier  a  smil- 
ing hero,  cheerfully  accepting  any  sacrifice  for 
his  country.  To  the  optimist,  Major  Duhamel 
opposes  that  poor  human  machine,  naturally 
yielding  when  the  power  of  resistance  flows  out 
with  the  life  blood,  and  for  which  he  has  nothing 
but  sympathy;  while  to  the  dogmatic  pessimist 
of  the  Barbusse  type  he  opposes  the  quiet  and 
beautiful  resignation  of  many  a  plain  "poilu" 
who  has  received  from  nature  a  great  reserve  of 
moral  strength, — and  the  number  of  these 
greatly  exceeds  the  number  of  the  discouraged. 
Throughout  the  book,  one  feels  that  his  observa- 
tion is  sound,  is  fair  to  the  individual  because  it 
is  based  on  an  intelligent  appreciation  of  each 
case.  But  the  effect  upon  the  reader  is  not  less 
distressing  than  that  produced  by  Malherbe's 
book;  it  awakens  an  immense  compassion  for 
those  whom  Duhamel  has  so  appropriately  called 
' '  JMartyrs, "  and  who  very  frequently  are 
** Saints"  also. 

Major  Duhamel  was  long  stationed  in  a  cha- 
teau transformed  into  an  hospital,  not  far  from 
the  front,  in  Artois,  near  Kheims.     That  means 
that  he  was  in  unceasing  personal  touch  with  the 
125 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

grands  Messes,  i.  e.,  those  men  who  were  too  seri- 
ously hurt  to  allow  of  transportation  further  into 
the  interior,  and  who  required  immediate  surgi- 
cal attention.  At  a  later  day  he  was  sum- 
moned with  his  unit  to  Verdun;  it  was  at  the 
time  when  the  great  battle  was  in  progress,  and 
there  again  he  saw  many  of  the  most  desperate 
eases. 

One  could  not,  without  spoiling  them,  repro- 
duce in  abbreviated  form  the  tales  of  sorrow, — 
sometimes  of  hope, — which  Major  Duhamel  has 
so  graphically  told :  the  long  suffering  of  ' '  Carre 
and  Lerondeau" ;  the  "Sacrifice"  of  the  two  legs 
of  Leglise:  the  story  of  the  German  officer  in 
"La  Troisieme  Sjonphonie";  the  little  gem 
called  "La  Grace"  which  tells  how  poor  Gre- 
goire  who,  having  received  the  gift  of  "grace," 
did  not  "know  how  to  suffer,"  and  therefore 
"suffered  much  more  than  the  others,"  while 
Auger  "knew  how  to  suffer"  and  was  perfectly 
happy,  and  was  ashamed  because  the  fine  ladies 
who  visited  the  hospital  gave  him  all  the  candy 
and  cigarettes;  and  how  he  found  a  touching 
way  of  passing  some  of  it  to  Gregoire  without 
hurting  the  feelings  of  the  ' '  pouter. ' ' 

Some  examples  of  Duhamel 's  style  ought,  how- 
ever, to  be  given.  The  following  bits  of  transla- 
126 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tion  are  by  Professor  H.  Isabelle  "Williams  of 
Smith  College :  *« 

Were  modesty  banished  from  the  rest  of  the  earth  it 
would  doubtless  be  found  hidden  in  Mouchon's  heart. 

I  can  still  see  him  being  brought  in  on  his  stretcher, 
covered  with  gravel,  his  soldier's  cape  heavy  with 
mud,  and  his  fine  frank  face  of  a  well-bred  child. 

"Have  to  excuse  me,"  he  says  to  me,  "you  can't 
keep  very  clean.  .  .  ." 

"Have  you  got  vermin  f  asked  the  orderly  undress- 
ing him. 

Mouchon  blushes  and  is  embarrassed: 

"Oh,  if  I  have  any  they  wouldn't  belong  to  me, 
that's  sure — " 

He  has  no  lice,  but  his  leg  is  broken  "on  account 
of  a  bomb." 

They  cut  open  his  breeches,  and  I  prepared  to  have 
his  foot  covering  removed.  Mouchon  put  out  a  hand 
and  suggests  timidly : 

"You  might  leave  my  shoes  on." 

"Why,  old  chaj),  we  can't  dress  your  leg  without 
taking  off  your  shoes." 

Then  Mouchon,  red  with  emotion: 

"But  if  they  take  off  my  shoes  ...  it  will 
smell.  .  .  ." 

I  have  often  thought  of  that  answer.     Believe  me, 
Mouchon,  I  have  not  yet  met  the  prince  who  is  worthy 
to  remove  your  shoes  and  wash  your  humble  feet. 
«         «         • 

48  They  were  first  publislied  in  Medicine  and  Surgery, 
December,  1917. 

127 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

From  his  belly  there  comes  forth  a  bundle  of  bloody 
dressings  and  the  odor  of  rotten  intestines.  With 
great  precaution  the  doctor  seizes  the  dressings  with 
his  forceps  and  draws  them  carefully  out.  A  sun- 
beam illuminates  the  whole  thing;  the  frail  shack 
trembles  with  the  cannon's  roar. 

"I  am  a  well  known  dealer  in  china,"  mumbles  the 
patient.  "You  are  from  Paris,  well,  so  am  I.  Save 
me  and  you'll  have  something;  I  will  give  you  a  fine 
piece  of  china." 

Little  by  little  the  dressings  are  dxawn  out,  the 
forceps  shine  and  the  sunbeam  seems  to  tremble,  so 
heavy  is  the  cannonade,  as  tremble  also  floor,  walls, 
slight  roof,  the  earth  round  about,  and  the  very  uni- 
verse dull  with  fatigue. 

Suddenly  coming  out  of  space,  a  yawling  moan 
begins,  increases,  cleaves  the  air  above  the  frail  shack 
and  the  shell  explodes  a  few  feet  away  with  the  sound 
of  a  cracked  object  breaking. 

The  thin  walls  seem  to  sway  beneath  the  rush  of 
air.  The  doctor  moves  his  head  slightly  merely  to 
see,  as  it  were,  where  the  thing  may  have  fallen. 

Then  the  china  dealer,  noticing  the  motion,  says  in 
a  peaceful  voice: 

"Don't  you  pay  any  attention  to  those  what-you- 
may-call-'ems  .  .  .  they  ain't  dangerous.  You  just 
save  me  and  I'll  give  you  a  fine  piece  of  china,  or  of 
earthenware,  just  as  you  please." 

The  cause  of  the  trouble  is  not  so  much  the  crushed 
leg  as  that  slight  wound  in  the  arm  which  has  let  so 
much  good  blood  escape.     His  lips  are  livid,  hardly 
128 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

distinguishable  from  the  rest  of  his  face,  the  pupils 
of  his  eyes  are  dark,  immense,  and  from  his  face  there 
shines  forth  a  soul  undaunted  that  will  not  yield  till 
the  last  moment.  He  takes  in,  almost  disapprovingly, 
the  ruin  of  his  own  body,  and  watching  the  surgeons 
busily  scrubbing  their  hands,  he  speaks  in  a  medita- 
tive voice : 

"You  will  tell  my  wife  that  my  last  thought  was  for 
her  and  my  children." 

Oh,  it  was  no  roundabout  question,  for  without 
hesitation  the  man  yielded  his  face  to  the  ether  mask. 

The  echo  of  his  solemn  words  still  resounded  in. 
the  room. 

"You  will  tell  my  wife.  .  .  ." 

There  is  no  attempt  to  dupe  this  manly  soul  with 
weak  consolation — mere  words.  The  white  blouse 
turns  around,  the  surgeon  shows  moist  eyes  behind 
his  glasses  and  with  deep  feeling  answers: 

"We  will  not  fail  to,  my  friend." 

The  patient's  eyelids  tremble — like  the  motion  of  a 
handkerchief  on  a  steamer  that  is  putting  out  to  sea, 
— then,  breathing-in  the  ether,  he  sinks  into  a  shadowy 
sleep. 

It  was  his  last,  and  we  did  not  fail  to  keep  our 

promise. 

*         *         * 

Mehay  nearly  died,  but  is  not  dead.  Therefore  aU 
is  well. 

The  bullet  perforated  the  helmet,  but  barely  touched 
the  bone.  The  brain  is  all  right.  So  much  the 
better ! 

Taking  just  time  to  wake  up,  reach  a  few  times  in 
129 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

memory  of  the  chloroform,  and  Mehay  looked  with 
eager  eyes  at  everything  that  was  going  on  around 
him. 

Three  days  after  the  operation,  Mehay  got  up. 
And  as  far  as  that  was  concerned,  it  was  simply  use- 
less to  forbid  it;  he  would  have  disobeyed  for  the 
first  time  in  his  life.  Taking  his  clothes  away  from 
him  was  not  to  be  thought  of,  the  brave  keep  their 
boots  on ! 

So,  Mehay  got  up,  and  his  illness  was  quite  done 
with. 

Every  morning  Mehay  got  out  of  bed  before  day- 
light and  seized  a  broom.  With  neatness  and  dis- 
patch, he  made  the  room  as  clean  as  his  conscience. 
He  forgot  no  comers;  he  knew  how  to  reach  softly 
under  the  beds  without  waking  his  sleeping  comrades 
and  without  worrying  the  sufferers.  Between  times 
he  passes  the  wash  basin  or  the  "pistolet,"  and  he  is 
as  gentle  as  a  woman  in  helping  to  dress  Vossaert, 
whose  limbs  are  stiff  and  painful.  At  eight  o'clock 
the  room  is  very  clean,  and  as  they  are  about  to  begin 
the  dressings,  Mehay  suddenly  appears  in  a  white 
apron.  He  watches  my  hands  attentively  as  they 
come  and  go,  and  he  is  always  at  the  right  place  to 
offer  the  sponge  to  the  extended  forceps,  to  pour 
alcohol  or  draw  up  a  bandage,  for  he  learned  at  once 
how  to  bandage  very  cleverly.  He  does  not  say  a 
word,  he  watches.  The  bit  of  his  forehead  visible 
above  the  bandage  is  furrowed  with  concentration 
and  it  bears  the  blue  marks  by  which  one  recognizes 
the  miner.  Sometimes  it  is  his  tuni  to  have  a  dress- 
ing. But  the  moment  his  turn  is  over,  he  stands 
130 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

there,  his  apron  over  bis  stomach  and  silently  hastens 
his  activities. 

At  eleven  o'clock  Mehay  disappears.  Has  he  gone 
on  an  errand?  Here  he  is  again  with  a  big  tray 
loaded  with  bowls,  he  makes  the  round. 

At  evening  he  brings  the  thermometer,  and  helps 
the  orderlies  so  well  that  he  leaves  them  little  to  do. 

All  the  while,  beneath  tlieir  dressings  the  bones  of 
his  skull  are  knitting,  and  the  red  flesh  starting  to 
grow.  But  that  calls  for  no  attention.  "That  can 
take  care  of  itself."  A  man  can't  remain  idle,  he 
works  and  trusts  to  his  blood  "which  is  healtby." 

In  the  evening,  when  the  night  lamp  sheds  its  light 

through  the  room  and  I  enter  on  tip-toe  to  give  a  last 

look,   I   hear  a   voice   spelling   laboriously    S-p-oo-1, 

spool.     Mehay  is  learning  to  read  before  going  to  bed. 

«         »         « 

The  lamp  is  left  lighted,  for  the  men  are  not  yet 
asleep,  and  are  smoking  a  bit.  You  have,  of  course, 
to  see  your  smoke,  otherwise  what's  the  goo.d  of 
smoking. 

I  go  over  toward  Cronin  Octave.  I  sit  down  near 
the  bed  and  say  nothing. 

Successive  cannonades  burst  forth  in  nocturnal 
space  and  the  entire  room  resounds  like  a  well  tmied 
drum. 

Cronin  turas  toward  me,  his  face  lost  in  its  band- 
ages, and  puts  out  a  leg  bathed  in  sweat  from  under 
his  covers,  for  his  fever  is  high  at  this  hour.  Nor 
does  he  say  anything;  he  knows  as  well  as  I  do  that 
things  aren't  well  with  him,  but  he  hopes  all  the  same 
that  I  shall  leave  without  speaking. 
131 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

No.  It  has  got  to  be.  I  lean  towards  him  and  say 
softly  the  necessary  thing.  He  listens  and  his  chin 
begins  to  tremble.  That  boyish  chin  of  his  with  its 
blond  down. 

Then  with  his  country  accent  he  says  in  a  tearful 
and  shaky  voice:  "I  have  lost  one  eye,  an'  if  I've 
got  to  lose  my  hand.  .  .  ."  The  one  remaining  eye 
fills  with  tears,  and  as  his  sound  hand  is  exposed  I 
press  it  gently  before  going  away. 
*         *         * 

When  my  fingers  approach  his  blind  eye  Cronin 
starts  back  slightly. 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  I  say  to  him. 

And  he  adds  with  calm  pride : 

"When  you  have  lived  on  hill  108,  you  can  never 
be  afraid  of  anything  any  more." 

"Then  why  do  you  draw  back?" 

"It's  my  head  that  draws  back.  I  don't  know  I 
do  it." 

And  it  is  true;  the  man  is  not  afraid  but  the  flesh 
remains  timid. 

When  the  head  bandage  is  nicely  placed,  what  re- 
mains visible  of  Cronin's  face  is  very  agreeable, 
young,  charming.  I  notice  this  with  satisfaction  and 
say  to  him : 

"The  disfigurement  isn't  bad  on  this  side.  They'll 
fix  it  up  so  well  that  you  can  still  make  a  hit  with 
the  girls." 

He  smiles,  touches  his  head  bandage,  looks  at  his 
mutilated  arm,  seems  lost  among  old  memories,  and 
murmurs : 

132 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

"All  the  same,  the  gals  won't  like  me  the  way  they 

used  to." 

«         »         « 

Mercier  is  dead,  and  I  have  seen  his  corpse 
weep.  ... 

I  did  not  believe  such  a  thing  possible.  They  had 
just  washed  his  face  and  combed  his  gray  hair. 

I  said  to  him : 

"You  are  not  forty,  my  poor  Mercier,  and  your 
hair  is  already  almost  white." 

"It  is  because  my  life  has  been  so  hard  and  I  have 
had  so  much  grief.  I  have  worked  so  much,  worked 
so  much !     I  have  had  so  little  luck.  .  .  ." 

There  are  fine  lines  of  pain  all  over  his  face,  a 
thousand  disappouitments  have  left  their  indelible 
traces.  Nevertheless  his  eyes  smile  continually  out 
from  his  withered  features,  his  eyes  are  glorious  with 
a  sort  of  rare  innocence  and  such  a  look  of  pure 
hopefulness ! 

"You  will  save  me  and  perhaps  I  shall  be  happier 
in  the  future." 

I  say :     "Yes."     And  I  think,  "Alas,  no !" 

But  suddenly  he  calls  me.  The  great  dark  circle  is 
darkening  around  the  smilmg  eyes.  His  forehead 
drips  with  sweat.  "Come,  come,"  he  says,  "some- 
thing teiTible  is  happening  to  me.  It  must  be  that  I 
am  going  to  die." 

We  hurry  to  the  poor  paralyzed  body,  the  face 
alone  tries  to  express  its  agony.  The  hands  scarcely 
move  under  the  covers.  Grape  shot  has  cut  off  the 
sources  of  life. 

We  do  what  we  can,  but  I  feel  his  heart  failing, 
133 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

his  mouth  doing  its  best  to  claim  one  drop,  only  one 
drop  from  the  immense  cup  of  air.  Little  by  little 
he  escapes  out  of  hell.  I  feel  his  hand  making  an 
effort  to  keep  hold  of  mine. 

"Stay  near  me,"  he  says,  "I  am  afraid.  .  .  ." 

I  remain  near  him.  The  sweat  ceases  to  flow  on  his 
forehead.  The  frightful  distress  lessens.  Air  again 
flows  into  his  wretched  breast.  His  gentle  eyes  smile 
on. 

''You  will  save  me  after  all,"  he  says,  "I  have  had 
too  unhappy  a  life  to  die  yet,  don't  you  think  so, 
doctor?" 

I  press  his  hand  to  give  him  confidence  and  I  feel 
that  his  hard  hand  is  happy  in  mine.  I  have  plunged 
my  fingers  into  his  flesh,  his  blood  has  flowed  over  my 
fingers,  that  is  enough  to  form  strong  bonds  between 
two  men. 

Calm  seems  to  have  returned.  I  talk  to  him  of  his 
beautiful  country.  He  was  a  baker  in  a  Cantal 
village.  I  was  down  that  way  once,  traveling  in  time 
of  peace.  We  recall  together  the  odor  of  the  junipers, 
on  surmner  days,  on  the  green  slopes,  and  the  mineral 
springs  of  wonderful  taste  that  gush  from  the 
moimtain. 

"Oh!"  he  says.     "I  shall  always  be  seeing  you." 

"Seeing  me,  Mercier?" 

He  is  a  very  simple  man,  he  tries  to  explain,  but 
merely  adds  : 

"In  my  eyes — I  shall  always  have  you  in  my 
eyes.  .  .  ." 

But  what  is  he  seeing  again  now?    What  else  is 
suddenly  reflected  in  his  eyes? 
134 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

"I  think — Oh  I     There,  it's  beginning  again." 

True  enough :  the  spasm  begins  again.  It  is 
terrible.  Whatever  we  do,  it  gets  the  better  of  the 
victim,  and  this  time  we  can  do  nothing.  .  .  . 

"I  feel  that  I  am  going  to  die,"  he  says.  The 
smiling  eyes  still  plead. 

"But  you  will  save  me,  you  will  save  me." 

I  can  alread}'  see  Mercier  disfigured  by  death. 

He  says : 

"Stay  near  me." 

His  nostrils  are  fluttering.  It  is  hard  to  have  been 
unhappy  for  forty  years  and  to  give  up  forever  the 
humble  joy  of  smelling  the  pungent  odor  of  the 
junipers. 

And  now  his  lips  contract  and  the  corners  droop 
little  by  little  so  sadly.  Oh !  How  sad  to  die  after 
forty  years  of  weariness,  without  even  having  time 
to  sponge  off  this  forehead,  always  bent  over  the 
daily  task. 

The  sacrifice  is  overwhelming  and  one  cannot  choose 
its  hour;  one  must  consent  when  the  voice  that  claims 
it  calls. 

Each  man  must  put  down  his  implement  and  rise, 
saying  only : 

"Here  am  I !" 

Oh,  how  hard  it  is  to  leave  this  life  made  up  of 
work  and  suffering. 

Once  more  the  eyes  smile  feebly.  They  smile  till 
the  verj'  last  second. 

He  speaks  no   more,  he   breathes  no   more.     His 
heart    has    stumbled,    rallied,    and    stumbled    again: 
now  it  is  motionless  as  a  foundered  race  horse. 
135 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Mercier  is  dead.  The  pupils  of  his  eyes  dilate 
solemnly  above  a  watery  depth.  All  is  over.  He 
cannot  be  saved.  .  .  . 

Then,  from  the  eyes  of  the  dead  man  swell  up 
great  tears  that  flow  down  his  cheeks.  I  see  his 
features  contract  as  if  to  weep  through  all  eternity. 

For  long  minutes  I  stUl  hold  the  dead  man's  hand 
between  mine. 

One  day, — he  does  not  say  what  had  hap- 
pened,— Major  Duhamel  is  struck  by  a  terrible 
wave  of  discouragement :  disgust,  apparently, 
with  men  who  will  allow  petty  political  intrigues 
to  mar  the  sacredness  of  a  war  which  claims  such 
unheard-of  sacrifices.  The  thought  of  the  vic- 
tims is  what  saves  him :  j^ou  may  doubt  anything 
in  the  world ;  you  cannot,  however, — especially 
if  you  are  an  army  surgeon, — doubt  the  reality 
of  suffering. 

"At  a  short  distance  is  the  battlefield.  The 
roar  of  the  guns  has  not  subsided  for  days.  Like 
a  noisy  and  complex  mechanism,  the  stupid  war 
machine  grinds  on  and  gives  out  minute  by 
minute,  the  products  of  its  interior  activity: 
bleeding  men.  We  receive  them;  they  are 
wrapped  in  sheets.  They  have  been  torn  with 
the  swiftness  of  lightning,  but  it  will  only  be 
with  the  cooperation  of  months  or  even  of  years, 
136 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

that  we  shall  succeed  in  repairing  the  damage 
done.  .  .  .  How  silent  they  all  are  to-night ! 
How  disturbing  the  spectacle  !  ...  In  the  tragic 
solemnity  of  the  hour  I  gaze  at  those  innocent 
victims,  and  I  feel  ashamed  to  be  alive  and  to  be 
breathing  freely ! 

"Poor  brethren!  What  could  we  do  for  you 
that  would  not  be  inadequate,  unworthy,  medi- 
ocre. One  ought  at  least  to  give  up  all  other 
preoccupations  to  devote  oneself  entirely'  to  the 
sacred  and  exacting  task. 

"But  no!  Around  your  beds  where  your 
lonely  drama  is  being  enacted,  a  sinister  comedy 
is  going  on  in  which  men  wear  grinning  masks. 
.  .  .  Neither  the  four  corpses  which  we  buried 
this  morning,  nor  your  daily  sufferings  are  suffi- 
cient to  disarm  those  appetites,  stop  that  schem- 
ing, brand  those  ambitions,  which  even  your  mar- 
tyrdom serves  to  foster.  .  .  .  Yet,  remember  the 
holy  anguish  of  the  first  hours  of  the  war ! 

' '  Never  mind !  Never  mind !  As  far  as  I  am 
concerned,  I  will  remain  here,  among  the  stretch- 
ers loaded  with  their  great  bundles  of  grief. 
This  is  the  hour  when  one  may  doubt  of  every- 
thing :  of  man,  of  the  world,  of  the  fate  reserved 
for  the  just  cause.  But  one  cannot  doubt  the 
suffering  of  men.  It  is  the  only  thing  which  is 
137 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

certain  at  this  moment.  I  shall  remain,  there- 
fore, overwhelmed  by  the  sinister  evidence. 
And  each  time  that  Beal,  who  lies  there  with  his 
stomach  open,  stretches  his  hand  toward  me, 
with  his  little  smile,  so  often  shall  I  get  up  to 
go  and  press  his  hands  in  mine,  for  he  is  fever- 
ish, and  he  knows  how  cool  my  hands  always 
are.  ..." 

It  is  interesting  to  know  that  Duhamel's  Vie 
des  Martyrs  was  considered,  together  with  Mal- 
herbe's  Flamme  au  Poing,  for  the  Prix  Goncourt 
in  1917.  In  1918,  Duhamel  published  another 
work,  Civilisation,  to  which  the  prize  was 
awarded.  This  work  is  a  kind  of  sequel  to  his 
Vie  des  Martyrs.  The  author  has  followed  the 
same  plan ;  his  inspiration  is  the  same,  but  the 
memoir  style  has  been  often  replaced  by  that  of 
the  short  story.  It  may  be  due  to  that  fact,  or  to 
some  other  cause,  but  this  second  work  does  not 
seem  equal  to  the  first,  and  one  suspects  that  the 
Prix  Goncourt  was  in  reality  awarded  to  Vie  des 
Martyrs  through  Civilisation.  The  philosophi- 
cal ideas  in  the  second  volume  seem  to  point  to 
a  development  in  the  thought  of  Duhamel ;  these 
ideas  are  gathered  up  in  the  last  chapter  from 
which  we  quote  the  following  lines:  "Civiliza- 
138 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tion,  real  civilization,  I  have  often  thought  of. 
It  appears  to  my  mind  as  a  chorus  of  tuneful 
voices  singing  in  perfect  harmony  a  lu'mn ;  or 
as  a  marble  statue  on  the  summit  of  a  parched 
hill ;  or  it  is  as  a  man  saying :  '  Love  one  an- 
other!' or  'Render  good  for  evil!'  But  for 
nearly  two  thousand  years,  men  have  been  re- 
peating those  words  over  and  over  again,  and 
the  high-priests  have  been  too  much  concerned 
with  secular  matters  to  conceive  any  other 
thought  of  like  greatness  or  beauty.  ...  I  have 
studied  with  care  that  monstrous  Moloch  in  its 
lofty  position.  And  I  tell  you  in  very  truth 
that  civilization  is  not  in  that  thing,  no  more  so 
than  it  is  in  the  shiny  instruments  of  the  sur- 
geon. Civilization  is  not  in  all  that  terrible 
trumpery-;  and,  if  it  is  not  in  the  heart  of  man, 
well,  then,  it  is  nowhere." 

Since  the  publication  of  Civilisation,  Duham- 
el's  thought  has  undergone  still  further  develop- 
ment. He  has  come  to  a  clear  realization  of 
what  was  brooding  within  him,  and  has  ex- 
pressed those  new  thoughts  in  various  articles 
which  have  appeared  for  the  most  part  in  the 
Mercure  de  France  and  in  V Opinion,  and  in  book 
form  under  the  title  La  Possession  du  Monde 
(1919). 

139 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

That  new  philosophy  of  life  is  a  praise  of  suf- 
fering which  recalls  some  other  famous  para- 
doxical eulogisms  of  former  days:  the  Praise  of 
Folly,  the  Praise  of  Stupidness,  the  Praise  of 
Poverty,  etc.  What  his  long  meditations  at  the 
bedside  of  his  "great  martyrs," 'what  his  con- 
templation of  their  patience,  of  their  resigna- 
tion, of  their  heroism,  have  taught  Duhamel  is 
that  "suffering  is  beautiful,  precious,  desir- 
able"; that  suffering  is  "wealth";  that  its  at- 
traction is  "mystical";  that  it  is  a  "priceless 
though  horrible  treasure";  that,  moreover,  suf- 
fering is  what  gives  to  art  its  impulse,  and  what 
"liberates  the  latent  energies  of  our  deepest  fac- 
ulties"; and  that  "while  joy  often  is  repellent, 
real  suffering  attracts  and  fascinates. ' '  *^ 

49  Our  readers  may  be  interested  to  know  of  some 
other  books  dealing  with  ambulance  work,  and  which, 
though  they  cannot  be  compared,  as  literature,  with  the 
books  of  Chauveau  and  Duhamel,  yet  contain  some  very 
beautiful  pages.  We  refer  to  works  of  religious  inspira- 
tion,— the  inspiration  coming  from  the  soldiers  whose 
cases  are  related  by  the  author, — by  Abbe  P.  C.  Klein, 
Aumonier:  La  Guerre  vue  d'une  Ambulance  (1915;  one 
of  the  very  first  books  of  the  Avar) ,  Avec  les  Diahles  Bleiis 
(1916),  and  Douleurs  qui  esperent  (1917).  Abbe  Klein 
became  Chaplain  of  the  American  Ambulance  at  Neuilly; 
his  books  were  translated  into  English  and  were  partic- 
ularly well  received  in  America.  One  may  also  read 
with  pleasure  J.  Roussel-Lepine:  Une  Ambulance  de 
Oare,  croquis  des  premiers  jours  de  la  gueri-e  (1916). 
And  Ch.  Hennebois:  Journal  d'un  Grand  Blesse  (1915)  : 
a  book  which  tells  of  the  author's  experiences  in  German 
140 


/ 

PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

II.    Descriptive  Type 

"We  have  spoken  of  soldier  types  in  war  novels ; 
then  of  works  written  b}'  men  of  philosophical 
bent  who  comment  upon  their  experiences,  and 
are  anxious  to  expound  their  views  and  senti- 
ments regarding  the  war;  we  now  come  to  those 
men  who,  reh'ing  more  upoii  the  eloquence  of 
plain  facts,  than  upon  anything  else,  discard  all 
indirect  methods,  and,  most  of  the  time,  any  at- 
tempt to  cultivate  artistic  form;  men  whose  per- 
sonality is  kept  in  the  background  or  at  least  is 
never  allowed  to  obtrude. 

But  these  war  diaries  are  legion,  and  the  task 
of  selecting  the  best  of  them  would  be  by  no 
means  an  easy  one — for,  indeed,  there  are  many 
which  are  "best." 

The  most  consistent  application  of  the  method 
just  referred  to, — that  of  a  perfectly  objective 
style, — is  to  be  found  in  Les  Diahles  Blens  pen- 
dant la  guerre  de  Dclivrance  1914-1916,  by 
Louis  Thomas,  Lieutenant  an  66e  Bataillon  des 
Chasseurs  a  pied  (1916).^"     The  fame  achieved 

Hospitals.  Hennebois's  book  will  be  analyzed  later.  In- 
formation concerning  life  in  llie  ambulances  and  hos- 
pitals may  be  gathered  also  in  Eydoux-Demian's  'Sotea 
d'une  Infrrmiere  (1914),  and  in  Xoelle  Roger's  Les 
Cametfs  d'une  Infirmiere  (1910).  See  further  titles  in 
Vic,  Op.  cit.  p.  297  ff. 

50  He  has  also  published  Arcc  les  Chasseurs    (1916). 
141 


\ 
\ 

FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT   vV^AR 

by  the  Chasseurs  a  pied  and  the  Chasseurs  al- 
pins, — whom  the  Germans  honored  by  the  nick- 
name of  Blue  Devils, — is  a  matter  of  universal 
knowledge.  They  were  truly  admirable;  and 
the  most  fitting  and  dignified  way  of  relating 
their  deeds,  was  that  adopted  by  Lieutenant 
Thomas:  a  plain,  unadorned  record  of  them. 

Sometimes  his  sentences  are  little  more  than 
statistical  records  in  figures: 

"Tete  de  Violu.  Oct.-Nov.,  1914. 

"Nov.  3rd,  1914.  The  Germans  began  to  bom- 
bard us  at  9  A.  M.,  and  did  not  cease  until  5 :30 
p.  M. 

"At  9:30  a  sharp  attack,  as  short  as  it  was 
ineffectual,  was  made  on  Fort  Regnault. 

"Nov,  4th.  The  bombardment  continued 
without  infantry  attack  until  9 :30  p.  m.,  when  a 
battalion  attempted  to  storm  our  position  on  the 
E.  and  N.-E.  of  Violu;  after  a  series  of  fruitless 
efforts  in  which  the  Germans  lost  heavily,  they 
withdrew  at  10:15  (p.  60). 

"August  4-5,  1915,  all  our  lines  are  being  sub- 
jected to  an  extraordinarily  violent  bombard- 
ment. 40,000  shells  of  all  calibers  have  fallen 
upon  our  trenches,  our  communication  trenches, 
and  our  dug-outs  and  have  destroyed  them  al- 
most completely"  (p.  188). 
142 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

At  other  times  his  entries  are  clear,  concise 
and  dry  as  military  dispatches : 

"Storming  of  Hill  285.     July  13,  1915. 

''The  commanding  officer  charges,  stick  in 
hand,  between  companies  A  and  B,  at  the  head 
of  his  pioneers. 

"Captain  Berthier  de  Wagram,  magnificent, 
rifle  in  hand,  Capt.  Boucherot,  and  Lieut.  Rou- 
let,  charge  at  the  head  of  their  companies. 

"Electrified  by  the  bugles,  carried  away  by 
the  example  of  all  its  officers,  the  battalion  cov- 
ers rapidly  a  distance  of  700  meters  and  bril- 
liantly carries  Hill  285.  Terror-stricken  at  the 
sight  of  the  dark  blue  uniforms  rapidly  advanc- 
ing toward  them  through  the  woods,  unnerved 
by  the  sound  of  the  bugles  which  the  ravines  re- 
echo, the  Germans  make  off  in  great  haste. 
Those  who  cannot  get  awaj^  kill  a  few  of  our 
men  and  Second-Lieutenant  Olive,  but  whoever 
has  fired  is  immediately  bayoneted.  The  ma- 
chine gunners  run  away  leaving  behind  their 
munitions.  We  take  a  few  prisoners.  They 
belong  to  the  130th  Infantry  and  to  the  6th 
Jaeger"  (p.  172-3). 

At  other  times  Thomas's  style  recalls  that  of 
military  citations: 

"Our  poor  Chasseurs  reclimb  the  slope  at  one 
143 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

rush,  sackless,  hatless,  and  many  of  them  without 
rifles.  Very  much  exposed  in  their  open  and 
half  destroyed  trenches,  many  of  them  fall,  but 
not  one  falls  back.  Corporal  Bonnard,  who  re- 
mains alone  with  two  Chasseurs  of  his  squad, 
raises  three  fingers  to  signal  to  his  C.  0.  the  num- 
ber of  men  remaining,  and  to  ask  for  reenforce- 
ments.  A  bullet  lays  him  low  in  the  trench. 
Then,  Sergeant  Armand,  one  of  the  best  fellows 
of  the  6th  company,  is  also  hit.  He  was  a  priest 
who,  desiring  to  fight,  had  by  the  connivance  of 
the  Major,  been  permitted  to  come  forward  be- 
fore his  time.  He  died  in  a  shell  hole  after  bless- 
ing his  wounded  comrades.  Soon  after,  Lieu- 
tenant Fabre,  who  had  fought  since  the  begin- 
ning of  the  war  without  ever  being  hurt,  fell 
cut  in  two  by  a  shell  splinter ;  it  was  in  going  to 
his  assistance  that  the  heroic  C.  0.,  Lieut.  Mar- 
son,  was  thrown  over  by  a  shell,  his  chest  torn 
open  by  three  shell  splinters;  his  right  cheek 
half  ripped  off.  To  the  end,  he  continued  to 
give  orders,  maintaining  bj'  his  example,  at  their 
post  of  duty,  all  those  over  whom  he  had  com- 
mand"  (p.  68-9). 

Sometimes,  though  rarely,  a  trace  of  emotion 
can  be  found  in  his  account ;  but  even  then,  it  is 
144 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

the  soldier,  not  the  man,  wlio  is  moved:  "More 
than  ten  fights  of  that  kind  took  place  during 
the  night  of  the  13th  to  the  14th.  The  Chas- 
seurs held  on  without  flinching  to  the  ground 
which  they  had  conquered.  The  night  battle 
was  lighted  up  by  rockets.  It  was  a  magnificent 
sight.  The  trenches  were  plowed  up  by  trench 
bombs  and  torpedoes.  When  buried  bj'.  an  ex- 
plosion, the  men  dug  themselves  out  and  con- 
tinued to  hold  on  to  their  positions  (pp.  176- 
77). 

''The  general  in  command  saw  his  men  rush 
forward  under  heav>'  fire  with  an  impetus  which, 
as  he  afterwards  said,  sent  a  thrill  of  pride 
through  him"   (p.  186). 

But,  generally  speaking,  if  any  lyrism  is  found 
in  the  book,  it  is  in  quotations  of  citations  for 
bravery:  "The  general  in  command  of  the  10th 
army  mentions  in  the  order  of  the  day  of  the 
army  the  31st  battalion  of  the  chasseurs  a  pied 
under  the  command  of  Major  Lalene-Laprade : 

"On  the  3rd,  4th  and  5th,  the  battalion  cov- 
ered itself  with  glory  by  counter-attacking  sev- 
eral times  in  succession  the  enemy  who  had  taken 
a  part  of  our  trench  system  on  the  Notre  Dame 
de  Lorette  plateau,  winning  back,  one  after  an- 
other, five  lines  of  trenches,  and  making  many 
145 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

prisoners.  The  unit  was  withdrawn  after  losing 
5  officers,  58  non-commissioned  officers  and  643 
men"  (p.  119). 

But,  one  may  ask:  Is  this  literature? — As 
much  so  as  the  geometric  style  of  Spinoza,  or 
the  terse  little  proverbs  of  the  Bible,  or  the 
proclamations  of  great  captains  like  Cassar  and 
Napoleon  .  .  .  and  the  generals  of  the  Great 
War. 

It  is  irresistible.  For  the  first  20  or  30  pages, 
the  reader  does  not  realize  how  moved  he  really 
is,  because  there  is  no  grandiloquence,  no  appar- 
ent emotion  in  the  writer.  But  after  reading 
page  after  page,  chapter  after  chapter;  after 
taking  in  all  those  dry  figures,  all  those  names, 
(every  one  of  which  one  knows  to  be  that  of  an 
invincible  hero),  after  noting  all  those  little  facts 
not  one  of  which  could  be  spared  without  mar- 
ring the  whole,  the  reader  finds  himself  fasci- 
nated, spellbound.  He  realizes  that  he  is  living 
in  an  ^^schylean  atmosphere.  The  expression 
is  not  too  strong.  Such  men  are  no  longer  men ; 
they  are  demi-gods;  not  because  they  are  de- 
scended from  deities,  but  because  they  have 
achieved  godlikeness.  Never  again  shall  the 
reader  be  able  to  hear  without  a  feeling  of  great 
reverence  such  names  as  Tete  de  Violu,  Hart- 
146 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

manswillerkopf,  Carency,  Metzeral,  Lingekopf, 
Bois  des  Caures,  Mort  Ilonlme  (in  the  Vosges) 
or  Hill  60  (at  Ypres).  Nothing  can  surpass  in 
heroic  grandeur  such  episodes  as  Au  sonimet  de 
Hartsmanswillerkopf  Janvier  1915  (pp.  93  sq.) 
or  Les  Chasseurs  de  Bagatelle,  28  juin  au  ler 

juillet  1915  (p.  161  sq.)." 

*         *         * 

In  Lieutenant  Jacques  Pericard's  Ceux  de 
Verdun  (1917),  we  have  a  war  diary  which  of- 
fers a  real  contrast  to  Lieut.  Thomas's.  They 
are  just  as  objective  statements  of  facts,  but 
while  Thomas  relates  his  in  a  perfectly  passion- 
less way,  Pericard  clothes  his  in  fine  epic  or  lyric 
garb.^^ 

This  book  describes  the  darkest  days  of  Ver- 
dun. The  author  was  with  the  95th  "regiment 
d 'active"  which,  together  with  General  Keibell's 
brigade,  was  cited  in  army  orders  for  conspicu- 
ous bravery  (p.  220). 

51  Among  the  many  names  quoted  by  Lieut.  Thomas, 
is  that  of  Capt.  Dubarle,  31e  bataillon  de  Cliasseurs, 
who  was  mentioned  in  army  orders  for  conspicuous  brav- 
ery and  decorated  (Oct.  18th,  1914)  :  a  man  of  indom- 
itable ener<ry.  lie  was  killed  after  nine  months  of  ac- 
tive service  and  his  Lettres  de  Guerre  (1918)  is  one  of 
the  best  soldier's  diaries. 

52  Pericard  has  published  two  other  books:  Face  4 
Face  (191(i),  crowned  bv  the  Academy,  and  Debout  les 
Morts!   (1918). 

147 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  few  quotations  from  Lieut.  Pericard  will 
show  how  he  differs  from  Lieut.  Thomas  in  his 
manner  of  relating  "his  experiences. 

As  they  approach  Verdun,  they  are  overtaken 
and  passed  by  an  endless  train  of  automobiles, 
carts  and  wagons  of  every  description  which  are 
bringing  up  men,  ammunition  and  food  sup- 
plies: "And  still  the  train  rolls  on.  The  im- 
pression which  one  receives  from  that  continu- 
ous, even-paced  procession,  is  that  of  formidable 
power.  One  would  say  that  all  the  vital  forces 
of  France  are  rushing  to  the  threatened  line. 
.  .  ."  (p.  59). 

Lieut.  Thomas  would  certainly  not  have  used 
those  or  similar  terms.  He  would  not  have  an- 
alyzed his  impressions.  He  would  have  de- 
scribed the  line  of  vehicles — possibly  made  a 
statement  in  figures — and  would  have  left  the 
rest  to  the  imagination  of  his  readers.  Neither 
would  he  have  made  a  Shakesperean  descrip- 
tion like  the  following.  The  battle  has  lasted 
several  days,  and  Pericard,  wishing  to  convey  to 
his  readers  an  idea  of  the  immensity  of  the 
slaughter,  writes: 

"The  crosses  which  cover  the  neighboring 
fields  do  but  deceive  the  eye;  for  no  man  can 
compute  the  number  of  the  dead  who  fell  at 
148 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Eparges  and  who  remained  without  sepulture. 

"Each  stroke  of  the  pick  reveals  a  corps.e; 
each  falling  shell  lays  bare  a  skeleton;  you  pick 
up  a  boot  which  seems  to  have  been  forgotten  be- 
hind a  trench;  it  contains  a  dying  foot;  you  rub 
against  a  piece  of  cloth  embedded  in  the  wall  of 
the  parapet,  and  find  that  it  is  a  coat  still  worn 
by  its  owner. 

"Some  of  the  trenches  had  to  be  opened 
through  solid  masses  of  corpses;  we  had  to  cut 
through  them  as  through  stone  in  a  quarry. 
Whoso  walked  through  the  works  of  defense  be- 
fore the  job  was  completed,  trod  in  putrefaction, 
choking  with  the  nauseous  stench,  and  was 
tripped  up  by  sly  shin-bones"  (p.  239). 

And  so  all  through  the  book.  Thomas's  de- 
scriptions are  just  as  grim  as  Pericard's,  some- 
times more  so,  but  he  does  not  insist.  Thomas 
sees  all  these  things  with  the  eye  of  a  soldier: 
Pericard  allows  himself  from  time  to  time  to  be 
more  humane,  and  to  lay  stress  on  the  sufferings 
of  the  soldiers;  nay,  lest  the  horror  of  them  be 
forgotten,  he  brings  in  a  sort  of  refrain  which, 
repeated  appropriately  after  certain  battle  de- 
scriptions, reminds  the  reader  that  his  accounts 
are  of  hell: 

"And  the  shells  fall  on,  and  on,  and  on.  It 
149 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

is  an  infernal  thunder  shower,  each  drop  of 
which  is  a  shell.  The  trenches  collapse,  the 
corpses  pile  up,  the  tumult  of  bursting  shells 
bruises  one.  The  ground  moves  like  water  boil- 
ing in  a  caldron;  the  very  heavens  are  out  of 
gear  .  .  .  and  to  oppose  that  hurricane,  that 
avalanche,  there  are  but  the  chests  of  men :  chests 
which  at  each  moment  become  less  and  less 
numerous,  but  more  and  more  erect  and  reso- 
lute. .  .  ." 

How  can  those  men  bear  the  strain?  Peri- 
card  confesses  that  he  cannot  understand,  but  he 
adds :  ' '  Who  can  measure  the  power  of  the  will  ? 
or  who  could  ever  say  to  heroism :  Thou  shalt  go 
no  further!"  (p.  134). 

When  the  enemy  has  shown  himself  unchival- 
rous,  Thomas  places  it  on  record  with  other 
facts ;  but  Pericard  gives  vent  to  his  indignation. 
When,  for  instance.  Fort  Douaumont  had  been 
taken  by  a  stratagem  (the  famous  Prussian 
guards  having  disguised  themselves  in  Zouave 
uniforms),  Pericard  scornfully  exclaims:  "And 
so  those  superb  Brandenburgers,  the  pride,  the 
glory  of  Germany,  scored  a  success  at  the  price 
of  such  treachery !  You  may  triumph,  William, 
that  sort  of  triumph  is  worthy  of  you  and  of 
those  whom  you  command!"  (p.  146). 
150 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

And  how  his  hatred  is  kindled  against  the  foe 
whose  treachery  has  caused  the  death  of  so  many 
brave  and  honest  French  soldiers — and  against 
the  shameless  invaders  who  have  left  tears  and 
death  in  their  wake !  Sometimes  when  he  sees 
a  family  of  refugees,  the  thought  of  his  own  lit- 
tle girl  comes  to  his  mind:  "Here  is  the  face  of 
my  little  Solange ;  here  are  her  large  eyes  open 
wide  with  astonishment  at  all  the  unexpected 
sights,  a  tear  trembling  on  the  lower  eyelid  and 
ready  to  fall;  here  are  her  curly  locks  with  a 
straw  caught  in  them  for  she  has  slept  in  the 
cold  on  a  bundle  of  litter.  I  can  imagine  my 
own  child  thus  driven  from  the  home,  weeping  as 
she  goes  along  the  highway,  or  seated  in  a  cart,  a 
little  exile ;  and  suddenly  fierce  anger  wells  up 
in  my  heart"  (pp.  55-6). 

He  has  seen  too  much  ever  to  forget  and  he 
brings  his  book  to  a  close  with  a  solemn  and  im- 
pressive warning:  "0  Poilu,  my  brother,  a  few 
words  before  I  close.  Do  not  forget  your  ha- 
tred!  Be  watchful  lest  your  generous  disposi- 
tion make  it  easy  for  you  to  forget ;  it  would  be 
shameful!  Think  of  those  who  have  fallen  at 
your  side;  think  of  the  towns  that  the  enemy 
burned,  of  the  women  that  he  insulted,  of  the  lit- 
tle girls  he  disemboweled.  .  .  .  Think  of  the 
151 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Brandenburgers  of  Douaumont  who,  to  enter  the 
fort,  disguised  themselves  as  Zouaves!  .  .  . 
Think  of  the  German  machine  gunners  of  Dri- 
court  who,  to  get  nearer  to  us,  put  on  ambulance 
service  uniforms  and  carried  their  guns  upon 
stretchers !  Think  of  your  comrades  of  Larfee 
who,  though  wounded  and  prisoners,  were  made 
screens  of  by  the  Germans  and  fell  by  your  own 
bullets  .  .  .  our  France  of  to-morrow  will  need, 
to  protect  her,  a  high  hedge  of  hatred.  .  .  .  You 
will  have  vanquished  the  Apocalyptic  Beast,  you 
will  have  broken  its  teeth  and  for  a  while  you 
will  be  secure  against  its  bite,  but  beware  of  its 
venomous  breath,  of  the  stink  of  its  rottenness, 
and  let  your  daily  prayer  be:  'Our  Father 
which  art  in  Heaven,  enlarge  our  hearts  that 
they  may  contain  more  hatred ! '  " 

Let  those  whom  those  words  may  shock  as  be- 
ing unchristian  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  ex- 
periences of  the  man  who  wrote  them;  if,  after 
that,  they  still  preach  compassion  for  the  Ger- 
mans, then  we  shall  pity  them  for  their  hardness 
of  heart,  ...  or  for  their  softness  of  brain.^^ 


53  Many  volumes  of  recollections  of  the  Battle  of  Ver- 
dun have  been  published  since  1916.  They  can  easily  be 
picked  out  by  their  titles  from  the  list  of  the  best  war 
diaries  which  we  give  below  (Appendix).  Among  the 
histories  of  the  Verdun  Battle  as  told  by  non-combat- 
152 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

A  work  the  tone  of  which  is  something  be- 
tween the  deliberate  impassiveness  of  Thomas, 
and  the  (sometimes)  deliberate  emotionalism  of 
Pericard,  is  the  excellent  volume  of  Capitaine 
Delvert,  Histoire  d'une  Compagnie  {Main  de 
Massige,  En  Champagne,  A  Verdun),  Journal 
de  Marche  (1918),  to  which  E,  Lavisse  has  con- 
tributed a  Preface. 

The  author  is  an  intellectual — a  Normalien  of 
the  class  of  1901.  He  writes  well,  and  while 
avoiding  the  lyric  and  the  epic  notes,  he  has  a 
style  which  is  distinctly  literary.  He  willingly 
speaks  of  what  he  has  been  reading,  makes  com- 
ments on  the  newspapers  and  reports;  but  first 
of  all  he  gives  a  rapid  account  of  the  happenings 
of  the  day,  as  the  excellently  chosen  sub-title  of 
his  work  (Journal  de  Marche)  suggests. 

The  records  begin  on  November  11th,  1915, 
date  on  which  he  is  promoted  to  the  rank  of 
company  leader,  and  continue  until  June  26th, 
1916,  when  the  company  went  out  of  existence, 
the  only  remaining  37  men  out  of  151  having 
been  sent  to  fill  gaps  in  the  raiiks  of  other  units. 

ants,  we  mention:  Jollivet.  L'Epopce  de  Verdun,  to 
which  Lieutenant-Colonel  Ronssct  contributes  a  preface 
(1917),  Henri  Dugard,  Bataille  de  Verdun  and  the  very 
impressive  account  given  by  an  eye  witness  though  not 
a  combatant,  Ilenri  Bordeaux,  in  his  two  volumes:  Les 
Derniers  Jours  du  Fort  de  Vaux  and  I'risu7iniers  dclivres. 
153 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Delvert  himself  was  wounded  four  times,  and, 
of  course,  was*  decorated. 

The  Company  is  first  sent  to  the  Argonne 
where  the  roads  are  soaked,  and  the  trenches  are 
nothing  but  filthy  cesspools.  They  are  next  sent 
to  Champagne,  the  district  of  wrecked  villages, 
with  an  outlook  on  neutral  zones  where  barbed 
wire  entanglements  hold  up  corpses  in  putrefac- 
tion. Here  the  soldiers  live  in  holes  out  of 
which  they  crawl  only  for  fatigue  duties,  and 
they  are  so  covered  with  mud  that  they  look  like 
large  clods  of  earth.  Their  rifles  also  are 
clogged  wath  mud,  and  the  men  are  without 
drinking  water.  How  they  held  out  under  such 
conditions,  Delvert  does  not  tell  us ;  he  only  tells 
us  that  they  did  hold  out,  resisting  terrific  at- 
tacks which  sometimes  lasted  for  three  consecu- 
tive days  and  were  carried  out  with  poison  gas, 
liquid  fire  and  deadly  artillery  fire. 

(Unlike  many  others,  he  attaches  little  faith  to 
the  help  that  religion  may  bring  to  the  men,  as 
is  shown  by  the  parenthesis  inserted  on  page  135 
with  reference  to  Bourget's  Sens  de  la  Mort. 
He  considers  that  the  natural  cheerfulness  of  the 
French  soldier  accounts  for  the  miracle:  "une 
hlague  et  Us  sont  remontes," — a  joke  and  they 
are  set  up  again.) 

154 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Later,  the  unit  is  sent  to  Verdun,  and  the 
change  is  for  the  worst.  "The  aspect  of  the 
trench  is  revolting.  Everj'where  the  stones  are 
dotted  with  little  red  drops.  In  some  places 
there  are  pools  of  blood.  On  the  parapet,  in  the 
communication  trench,  there  are  everywhere  stiff 
corpses  covered  over  with  tent  cloth.  A  sore 
opens  up  in  the  thigh  of  one  of  them.  The  flesh 
is  rotting  away  under  the  burning  sun,  it  has 
swollen  up,  burst  the  cloth  of  the  breeches,  and 
large  white  flies  are  feeding  on  it.  On  the  right, 
on  the  left,  the  soil  is  covered  with  nameless 
debris:  empty  tin  cans,  ripped  knapsacks, 
pierced  helmets,  broken  rifles  covered  with 
blood.  An  unbearable  smell  fills  the  air.  And 
to  make  matters  worse,  the  Boches  are  bombing 
us  with  tear-gas  shells."     (Verdun,  "Slay  14-17). 

The  volume  is  full  of  such  descriptions.  Del- 
vert  cares  nothing  for  our  nerves.  The  descrip- 
tions are  not  all  equal  in  len.frth  to  this  one,  but 
many  of  them  are  equally  horrible ;  they  alter- 
nate, however,  with  occasional  descriptions  of 
spring  landscapes,  of  rays  of  sunshine,  which  by 
their  sharp  contrast  enhance  the  horror  of  the 
others. 

Nowhere  has  a  better  description  of  the  cock- 
pit of  Verdun  been  given  than  in  the  last  chapter 
155 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  this  book.  It  is  interesting-  to  note  that  Del- 
vert,  like  Perieard,  ends  with  a  malediction  of 
the  Germans.  It  is  just  as  sincere  as  Perieard 's 
but  is  expressed  in  more  classical  literary  form : 

"  Oh !  the  brutes !  the  brutes ! 
"And  to  think  that  the  human  race  should  be 
subject  to  the  law  of  its  inferior  types:  of  those 
in  whom  the  lowest  instincts  of  the  brute  still 
dominate;  and  that  the  Spirit,  bound  to  the 
cross  these  many  hundred  years,  shall  never, 
perhaps,  be  released.  . 
"Ariel  and  Caliban. 
' '  These  are  the  tricks  of  Caliban. 
"He  is  pleased,  indeed,  and  his  heart  swells 
with  contentment !  Where  life  universal  had 
blossomed  forth  in  vernal  splendor,  had  called 
upon  the  trees  to  grow,  the  trees  those  peaceful 
children  of  full-bosomed  Earth,  who  lift  toward 
the  light  their  supple  limbs  all  richly  draped 
with  leaves ;  where  life  had  called  out  the  bushes, 
the  flowers  and  the  blades  of  grass,  and  all  that 
wealth  of  beauty  in  which  the  kindly  Mother 
of  all  beings  and  of  all  things  loves  to  bedeck 
herself;  where  Ariel  had  taught  the  birds  their 
sweetest  songs  and  filled  the  glowing  heart  of 
man  with  harmonies ;  there,  has  Caliban  flung — 
156 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

with  wonderful  precision,  we  are  ready  to  admit 
— his  infernal  machines  of  all  sizes. 
''And  all  that  remains  is  a  desert;   a  bloody 
and    hideous    desert !     How    happy*  he    must 
be!"  ...   (p.  288). 

*        *        * 

Captain  Delvert  describes  mainly  the  life  of 
his  company  in  active  warfare,^*  laying  stress 
on  the  great  hours  which  the  company  lived 
throughf  The  aim  of  Max  Buteau's  Tenir, 
Recits  de  la  Vie  des  Tranchees  (1918)  which  is 
more  recent,  is  just  the  reverse,  namelj',  to  de- 
scribe the  everyday  life  of  the  soldier  of  the 
Great  War:  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  we 
make  a  place  for  it  here.  It  opens  with  a 
striking  account  of  the  funeral  of  a  soldier  who 
died  in  a  village  hospital  early  in  the  war ;  then 
it  tells  of  the  training  of  the  soldier  at  the  army 
depot,  and  in  Avretched  villages  near  the  front ; 
then  we  follow  the  man  to  the  trenches  where 
he  is  facing  not  so  often  the  enemy  as  the  quite 
important  problems  of  procuring  meals,  and  of 
the  care  of  uniforms  and  arms;  then  again  at 
each  new  resting  place  the  seeking  for  billets; 
at  the  end  only  we  hear  of  alarms  (not  of  spec- 

54  In    1018    Delvert    published    another   volume.    Quel- 
ques  IlCros,  Recits  authenti(nies  de  la  Grande  Guerre. 
357 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tacular  alarms),  of  offensives  (of  the  same  char- 
acter), and  of  removal  to  the  hospital  at  the 
rear  of  the  fighting  line.  The  long  preface  in 
which  the  author  states  his  desire  to  correct  the 
entirely  wrong  impression  which  the  public  has 
received  of  the  meaning  of  trench  warfare,  is 
apt  to  prejudice  one  against  the  book.  .  .  . 
There  have  been  so  many  books  written  with  the 
purpose  of  giving  at  last  to  the  poor  deceived 
reader  the  "true  story"!  This  time,  however, 
the  claim  is  not  without  justification:  that  ac- 
count of  life  in  the  trenches,  deliberately  set- 
ting aside  all  hair-raising  stories,  was  in  1918 
something  really  new:  it  gives  a  background 
of  reality  to  all  the  other  war  recollections  we 
may  read.  It  may  seem  comparatively  terse 
reading,  but  the  author  has  successfully  avoided 
that  not  uncommon  tone  of  indifference  to 
danger  and  to  suffering  which  savors  a  little  of 
affectation  ^^   as  well  as  the  sulky  tone  of  the 

55  As  an  example  of  this  we  could  quote  Jacques  Pi- 
erre's 80,000  milles  en  TorpiUeur  (1918).  It  is  the  best 
of  those  books  which  represent  the  soldier  of  the  great 
war  as  bearing  cheerfully — too  cheerfully — his  crushing 
burden.  We  do  not  like  the  actor  in  so  grim  a  drama  to 
make  light,  or  to  pretend  to  make  light  of  his  task. 
Fierre  enjoys  relating  such  humorous  incidents  as  their 
mistaking  a  sea-lion  for  a  torpedo,  the  receiving  of  a 
wireless  signaling  their  own  craft  as  an  enemy  boat,  at- 
tempts of  steamers  to  ram  them  in  the  belief  that  their 
158 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

obscure  heroes  who,  more  deserving  than  many 
others,  have  nevertheless  received  no  recognition 
in  the  form  of  medals.  The  title  admirablj'  ex- 
presses the  whole  idea  of  the  book:  "Tenir." 

A  book  combining  the  features  of  both  Del- 
vert  and  Buteau,  and  one  which  ought  not  to  be 
passed  without  notice,  is  Raymond  Gentry's  La 
Flamme  Victorieuse  (1917).  The  spirit  is  ex- 
cellent; it  is  equally  removed  from  false  modesty 
and  from  the  suggestion  that  the  horrors,  that 
the  author  has  lived  through,  beggar  descrip- 
tion. Gentry  does  not  strike  attitudes;  he  is 
sometimes  humorous,  sometimes  pathetic,  but 
manly  always.  By  profession  he  is  a  Paris 
journalist,  and  a  writer  of  no  mean  ability. 
He  has  some  delightful  sketches  of  types,  the 
best  of  which  is  Nenesse,  the  plumber  of  Mont- 
parnasse,  a  splendid  duplicate  of  Gaspard,  the 
snail  vendor  of  Montmartre. 

little  torpedo  destroyer  was  a  German  submarine.  The 
difficulty  of  running  down  submarines  is,  however,  well 
described. 

Something  of  the  same  tone  is  apparent  in  Emile  Hen- 
riot's  Carnet  d'ini  Dragon  dans  Ics  Tranchees  1915-191(1. 
Henriot  is  an  editor  on  the  staff  of  the  Temps,  and  the 
author  of  .4  quoi  revent  les  Jeunes  Gens  (1013).  After 
eleven  months  of  warfare  he  feels  disappointed  because 
he  has  not  seen  any  real  fighting:  "It  seems  strange, 
when  I  think  of  it,  that  I  should  have  been  eleven 
months  in  first  line  trenches, — and  not  always  in  the 
best  places — without  having  had  a  single  opportunity  of 
using  my  rifle." 

159 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 


As  so  many  of  the  books  which  have  already 
been  discussed,  and  many  more  of  those  which 
are  mentioned  later,  refer  to  the  Marne  and  to 
Verdun,  it  might  be  well,  perhaps,  to  group  to- 
gether here  the  names  of  a  few  of  those  which 
deal  with  the  fighting  in  Flanders,  where  the 
victories  were  not  achieved  by  the  French  arms 
alone,  as  was  the  case  at  Verdun,  although  they 
contributed  a  large  share  to  them.  We  place 
at  the  head  of  that  group  the  book  by.  Lieut. 
J.  Pinguet  of  the  French  navy :  Trots  Etapes  de 
la  Brigade  des  Fusiliers  Marins — La  Marne, 
Gand,  Dixmude  (1918).  It  relates  the  heroic 
deeds  of  the  Breton  marines,  who,  like  the 
"chasseurs,"  made  a  very  glorious  name  for 
themselves  during  the  great  war.  Pinguet  tells 
how  these  6,000  men  kept  at  bay,  for  months, 
troops  which  outnumbered  them  in  a  proportion 
of  ten  to  one.  Charles  Le  Goffic  had  previously 
described  the  fighting  at  Dixmude.  But  while 
his  description,  which  is  as  beautiful  as  a  leg- 
end,^® and  worthy  of  his  sturdy  heroes,  he  did  not 

56  Ch.  Le  GofRc,  Dixrmide,  Vn  Chapitre  de  VHistoire 
des  Fusiliers  Marins  (7  oct. — 10  nov.  1914)-  Steen- 
straete,  Vn  2°  chapitre  .  .  .  St.  Georges  et  Nieuport, 
suite  et  fin  (3  vol.  in  all,  1916  ff).  See  also  the  fine 
book  by  G.  Le  Bail,  La  Brigade  des  Jean  le  Gouin ;  His- 
toire  documentaire  et  anecdotique  des  Fusiliers  marins 
160 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

live  that  legend,  whereas  Pinguet  did.  In  fact 
the  works  of  Pinguet  and  Le  Goffie  complete  each 
other:  The  one  relates  the  fighting  as  a  whole, 
as  seen  by  Admiral  Rornach,  the  commander-in- 
chief  of  those  remarkable  troops,  the  other  tells 
of  the  work  of  separate  units  which  typifj^  all 
the  others.  One  will  obtain  a  better  understand- 
ing of  the  "gigantic"  struggle  by  reading  Le 
Goffie,  and  of  the  "heroic"  struggle  by  reading 
Pinguet.  Note  that  Pinguet  does  not  speak 
only  of  heroic  resistance,  he  relates  moments  of 
weakening  also,  as,  for  instance,  that  day  when 
his  men  reall}-  wanted  to  give  up ;  so  while 
Pinguet  is  less  consistently  epic  than  Le  Goffie, 
he  is  more  tragically  true. 

As  a  complement  to  these  two  books,  one  might 
read  Marguerite  Baulu's  La  Retraite  d'Anvers 
et  la  BaiaiUe  de  I'Yser,  to  which  M.  Vander- 
velde  contributes  a  preface  (1918).  This  thick 
volume  tells  of  the  part  which  the  48,000  Bel- 
gians had  in  the  battle  of  the  Yser,  where  they 
fought  side  by  side  with  Admiral  Rornarch's 
marines.  It  is  a  conscientiously  written  recon- 
struction, with  maps  and  drawings,  of  the 
whole  moving  drama  of  the  Belgian  army,  which 

de  Dixmude    (d'apres   des   Documents  originaux  et  des 
rioits  des  Combattants)    (1917). 
IGl 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ended  when  the  flooding  of  the  country  came  to 
the  rescue  of  the  Allies.  The  "inside"  story  of 
the  Belgian  army  has  been  told  in  Mon  Journal  de 
Campagne,  by  Robert  de  Wilde,  a  Belgian  artil- 
lery captain  at  Liege  and  on  the  Yser  (1918). 

^  jf.  ^  * 

It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  at  the  conclusion 
of  the  reading  of  each  of  these  war  diaries  one 
is  inclined  to  say:  this  is  positively  the  best  of 
all  those  I  have  read  so  far.  Is  this  due  to  a 
simple  phenomenon  of  displacement  of  former 
occupants  by  the  last  occupant  of  the  mind,  or 
is  it,  perhaps,  because  one 's  admiration  increases 
with  each  new  account  of  the  splendid  achieve- 
ments of  the  soldiers  of  the  great  war,  and  that 
one's  emotions  are  keyed  up  to  a  higher  pitch 
by  each  successive  reading?  The  present  writer 
does  not  pretend  to  be  able  to  offer  any  definite 
explanation.  But  this  he  knows,  that  if  he  were 
asked  to  point  out  the  diary  which  has  left  the 
deepest  and  most  lasting  impression  upon  his 
own  mind,  he  would  unhesitatingly  reply: 
Erlande's  En  Campagne  avec  la  Legion  Etran- 
gere  (1917).  It  is  the  one  which,  from  all  points 
of  view,  appeals  most  to  our  human  selves  in 
their  entirety;  because,  although  it  is  a  war 
diary,  it  never  fails  to  give  a  large  place  to  the 
162 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

man  as  man  and  as  distinct  from  the  soldier ;  be- 
cause, too, — owing  to  the  special  way  in  which 
the  Legion  is  recruited — one  feels  here  more 
than  anywhere  else  the  moral  self-determination 
of  the  men,  for  they  are  all  volunteers,  and  in 
no  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  They  are,  for 
the  most  part,  men  who  are  not  French  by 
birth,  but  w^ho  wish  to  fight  for  France,  men 
who  without  any  moral  or  other  compulsion, 
have  coolly  and  deliberately  elected  to  serve 
France,  for  reasons  of  their  own.  We  prefer 
Erlande  also  because — why  should  one  hesitate 
to  confess  it? — because  of  the  splendid  virility 
which  his  men  manifest  in  big  spectacular 
achievements.  There  is  in  that  fact  something 
which  satisfies  the  mind,  that  harmonizes  with 
our  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things.  There  is  a 
shocking  disproportion  or  lack  of  fitness  when 
men  of  only  average  personality  express  them- 
selves in  actions  which  seem  grand;  this,  we 
feel,  is  melodramatic ;  but  there  is  also  a  lack 
of  fitness  when  truly  heroic  souls  have  to  ex- 
press themselves  through  tame,  commonplace 
events;  now  these  men  of  the  Legion  being 
splendid  personalities,  it  pleases  us  that  oppor- 
tunities should  be  afforded  them  of  expressing 
themselves  in  acts  of  splendor. 
163 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  official  account  of  the  achievements  of  the 
Volont aires  Etrangers  during  the  war  will  be 
WTitten  by  M.  Emile  Roux-Parnasse.  He  will 
have  more  to  place  on  record  than  Erlande,  but 
however  large  his  catalogue  of  deeds,  it  will 
never  have  the  true  ring  of  Erlande 's  per- 
sonal account.  The  unit  whose  deeds  he  records, 
is  Battalion  D,  of  the  2nd  regiment  of  the  1st 
Legion,  and  more  especially  Company  D2  of  that 
Battalion.  Battalion  D  ceased  to  exist  as  a  unit 
a  few  weeks  after  that  terrible  attack  of  May 
9th,  1915,  on  account  of  the  numerous  deaths 
among  its  members,  including  that  of  Major 
Muller,  its  glorious  commanding  officer.  It  was 
Muller  who  had  mustered  and  trained  the  re- 
cruits at  Avignon  in  August,  1914,  and  it  was 
with  sincere  conviction  that  those  men  would 
sing: 

C'est  nous  la  Legion, 

Baionnette  au  canon, 
Qui  venons  combattre  avec  la  France ! 

As  a  collection  of  psychological  documents 
this  book  is  far  more  substantial  than  many 
novels  of  the  once  famous  realist  school  would 
be  if  rolled  into  one,  although  that  school  claimed 
to  draw  its  chief  interest  from  "scientific  ob- 
servation and  documentation."  Such  a  wealth 
164 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

of  characters,— ii  we  may  use  that  popular  term, 
— will  be  found  nowhere  else:  there  are  sons 
of   bourgeois   homes,    unfrocked    priests,    mem- 
bers of  the  aristocracy,  foreign  princes,  nihilists, 
crooks,  students,  painters,  dancers,  Jews,  politi- 
cal exiles,  men  of  50  and  boys  of  17;  there  is 
Xavier  de  Carvalho,  son  of  the  famous  Portu- 
guese pamphleteer;   Grant,  the  English  artist; 
Gourfinkel,  the  Russian  student,  a  thoroughgoing 
radical-socialist,  and   at   the  same  time  an   in- 
corrigible aristocrat   in  thought ;   there   is   also 
Fere  Charles,  the  loquacious  sergeant,  as  prodi- 
gal of  daring  deeds  as  of  picturesque  language. 
Let  us  pick  out  two  typical  sketches  of  these  men : 
"Sergeant    Glorian   has   recently  been   made 
quartermaster   in    D2    Company.     He    is    fair- 
haired,  wears  a  carefully  trained  mustache,  and 
has   blue   jolly    eyes    that    twinkle    behind    the 
glasses  of  his  pince-nez.     In  civil  life  he  was  a 
theatrical  manager.     He  had  staged  at  Brussels 
and  at  Paris  the  'IMerry  Widow,'  and  'Waltz 
Dream,'  and  various  other  light  operas  wiiich 
he  knows  by   heart.     The  others   say   of  him: 
'Glorian!  he  is  always  full  of  go,  always  jolly! 
his  morale  is  perfect!'     Glorian  replies  that  he 
had  got  poisoning  of  the  blood  in  the  theater, 
that  he  has  come  to  the  war  to  rast,  to  build  up 
165 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

liis  health,  and  that  he  has  made  up  his  mind 
never  to  have  the  blues.  .  .  .  He  is  the  most 
magnificent  toper  of  the  company.  He  has  inter- 
esting comments  to  make  upon  the  newspaper 
reports  of  the  front ;  he  has  also  many  good  sto- 
ries to  tell  and  he  improvises  to  the  waltz  tune 
from  the  Merry^  Widow. 

0  paille  pourrie  sur  laquelle  on  s'etend, 

Cadavres  de  rats  qui  puez  au  printemps, 

Os  de  cotelettes 

Poux  de  Quatre  Cent  Vingt 

Proprete  parfaite 

0  quel  sejour  divin.  (p.  186) 

The  name  of  the  following  character  is  not 
given.  "In  front  of  a  restaurant  an  adjutant 
is  pitching  into  a  man  in  a  most  magnificent 
style.  The  man  is  a  strange  looking  fellow: 
short,  thickset,  pink  all  over;  he  listens  to  the 
adjutant  in  silence,  his  head  a  little  to  one  side, 
his  finger  tips  joined  together,  his  eyes  turned 
heavenward.  The  adjutant  having  brought  his 
remarks  to  a  close,  the  'legionnaire'  heaves  a 
sigh  and  says :  '  How  can  you  treat  in  that  man- 
ner a  man  who  still  has  the  power  to  bring  God 
down  from  heaven  at  Holy  Communion?  I  am 
in  Holy  Orders  .  .  .  and  I  am  a  victim  of  love ! ' 

''Grant  invited  him  to  empty  a  glass  and 
166 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

asked  him  to  relate  his  story.  He  was  a  priest. 
At  25,  he  seduced  one  of  his  penitents,  who 
soon  afterwards  abandoned  him,  and  he  enlisted 
in  the  Legion. 

" — Twenty  years  of  service! — 

"And  drawing  from  his  pocket  his  colonial 
service  medals : 

* '  '  Here 's  my  tinware ! ' 

"And  until  roll-call  he  continued  telling 
anecdotes  enameled  with  Latin  quotations.  In 
his  satchel  he  had  a  copy  of  Marcus  Aurelius: 
'It's  all  there,'  says  he,  'I  never  read  anything 
else'  "  (p.  273). 

The  opening  chapters  of  the  book  tell  how 
these  various  elements  were  made  into  a  coherent 
military  unit.  The  explanation  is  psychological 
and  rather  difficult  to  give.  It  seems  almost  as 
if,  because  they  are  heterogeneous,  and  because 
no  one  would  think  it  possible  for  them  to  sub- 
mit to  uniform  discipline,  they  are  determined 
to  show  what  they  can  accomplish.  Their  esprit 
de  corps  is  the  result  of  a  kind  of  wager,  a 
triumph  of  the  will.  "It  is  a  secret  discipline," 
says  Erlande,  "it  appeals  not  to  the  sense  of 
duty,  nor  to  fear  of  punishment,  but  to  a  proud 
self-respect  (amour-propre  et  fierte)."  It  is  a 
combination  of  traditions,  more  efficient  than 
]67 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  most  rigid  rules,  a  "loi  d'orgueil,"  a  tacit 
understanding,  and,  so  to  speak,  a  ''moral  uni- 
form. ' '  But  it  matters  little  how  the  result  was 
attained,  the  fact  is  patent  that  "in  no  other 
formation  was  the  esprit  de  corps  so  living  a 
reality,"  and  that  miracle  of  implanting  the 
spirit  of  the  LfCgion  into  new  recruits  in  August, 
1914,  was  the  work  of  one  month. 

Each  company  of  the  battalion,  however,  de- 
veloped a  special  character.  Dl  was  the  "model 
company,"  in  which  military^  correctness  pre- 
vailed; D2  was  the  "electric  company";  when- 
ever some  unit  broke  a  record,  D2  at  once  outdid 
it;  D3  is  the  "happy  company," — when  everj^- 
thing  is  as  it  should  be,  why,  all  is  well! — D4 
is  a  duplicate  of  Dl. 

"Now  they  are  ready.  Every  man  knows 
what  he  owes  to  the  flags  of  the  Legion :  ii&ver  to 
look  backward,  never  to  retreat  to  save  his  life. 
The  wine  is  drawn,  it  must  be  drunk"  (p.  98). 

Such  determined  men  must  have  leaders 
worthy  of  them.  And  they  certainly  have! 
Junot,  for  instance,  the  captain  of  the  "electric 
company," — "Junot,"  said  an  African  veteran, 
"I  know  him!  He's  the  very  thunder  of  God! 
He  is  as  rich  as  Croesus,  and  loves  nothing  but 
war,  danger,  adventures;  he's  a  soldier,  first 
168 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

and  last,  a  soldier  and  that's  all!  He  has 
fought  wherever  there  was  fighting  to  be  had. 
He's  the  best  cavalr3-man  in  the  French  army. 
And  as  for  a  marksman !  He  can  kill  a  flying 
pigeon  with  his  revolver,  and  knock  a  hole 
through  a  penny  piece  at  50  yards.  And  with 
all  that  he  is  as  brave  as  they  are  made.  With 
him  it 's  a  pleasure  to  go  into  it,  but,  begad,  you 
mustn't  show  funk  !  As  for  him,  he  doesn't  care 
a  damn;  he's  armor  plated,  he  can  go  through 
anything !  ^'^ 

The  Legionnaire  is  a  proud  fellow  as  the  fol- 
lowing short  description  attests:  "When  he 
must  work  with  pick  and  shovel,  he  does  so, 
but  grouching  (en  rouspetant), — for  the  fellow 
must  be  a  blatant  ass  (dingo)  who  regards 
shoveling  earth  and  mud  a  whole  night  long  as 
something  entertaining.  When  he  must  fight, 
the  Legionnaire  fights,  but  with  a  happy  smile! 
When  there  is  neither  working  nor  fighting  to 
be  done,  he  wants  to  be  satisfied,  i.  e.,  he  eats 
well,  he  drinks  well,  and  he  sleeps  well." 

The  following  describes  the  moment  at  which 
an  attack  is  going  to  be  launched. 

S7  For   Junot,   read   Junod.     He  was   of   Swiss  origin, 
born  in  Geneva  in   1S75,  and  was  killed  Sept.  28,  lOlo, 
durinfr  the  attack  of  the   strongholds  of  Souhain.     His 
Lettres  et  Souvenirs  were  published  in  1918. 
169 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

"The  men  are  lined  up  behind  the  parapet. 
.  .  .  There  is  perfect  silence  in  the  trenches, 

"One  single  thought  occupies  the  mind  of 
them  all :  The  attack  must  be  brilliant.  There 
are  no  jokes  flying  about,  there  is  no  boasting, 
nor  any  of  those  sublime  utterances;  words 
which,  in  all  probability,  have  never  been 
uttered;  words  invented  at  the  rear  by  those 
who  make  their  living  by  writing  with  their  slip- 
pers on  and  their  bellies  full,  and  the  comfort- 
able thought  that  it  is  sublime  that  others  should 
die.  .  .  ."  (p.  235). 

There  is  one  episode  in  the  book  which  is  truly 
sublime.  It  is  the  attack  of  May  9th,  1915,  dur- 
ing the  battle  of  Arras,  a  magnificently  heroic, 
but  frightfully  costly  charge.  The  Legionnaires 
took  in  succession  the  Chalk  Pits,  la  Targette, 
and  Neuville  Saint  Vaast.  The  excitement  of 
reading  those  pages  leaves  one  breathless.  One 
must  bear  in  mind  that  every  man  who  took  part 
in  that  charge  knew  what  it  must  cost,  and  that 
only  by  the  greatest  good  luck  could  he  come  out 
of  it  alive.  But  they  went  with  splendid  com- 
posure to  that  "orgy  of  heroism." 

A  short  fragment  from  the  description  of  that 
charge  will  enable  the  reader  to  form  an  idea 
of  what  it  was. 

170 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

"Battalion  C  is  on  duty  at  the  listening  posts. 

"In  front  of  the  barbed  wire  entanglements, 
Major  Moiret,  the  father  of  the  Poles,  falls  with 
a  bullet  through  his  heart.  Upon  him  the  same 
machine  gun.  salve  piles  up,  Brigadier  Van 
Mengen,  a  Belgian  of  50  years  of  age,  Corporal 
Onegger,  of.  the  hospital  service, — a  Russian 
student;  the  Greek  stretcher-bearer,  Theodolds. 
Alongside  of  them,  Neuflagel,  a  Polish  army 
doctor,  is  breathing  his  last  with  two  bullets 
through  his  kidnej^s. 

"Battalion  D  follows  Battalion  C. 

"Between  the  lines,  Major  Muller,  struck  in 
the  liver,  drops  and  dies.  Near  him.  Quarter- 
master Sergeant  Glorian  and  Sergeant-Major 
Nagel  fall  dead.  At  the  moment  of  leaping  into 
the  German  trench  Captain  Junot  receives  a 
bullet  through  the  chest. 

"Wearing  his  overcoat,  a  rifle  with  twisted 
bayonette  in  his  hand,  his  arm  bleeding,  his  face 
damaged  by  a  blow  from  the  butt  end  of  a  rifle, 
yelling  and  magniflcent,  little  Lieutenant  Vives 
runs  forward  like  a  madman  and  finally  drops 
in  a  faint.  His  friend  Lieutenant  Gougeux  is 
among  the  dead.  .  .  . 

"In  a  shell  hole,  Pere  Charles,  whose  thigh  is 
broken,  xjalls  for  the  stretcher-bearers;  a  little 
171 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

further,  Sergeant  Ostache  is  lying  on  the  ground, 
.  .  .  then  Sergeant  Dones  .  .  .  then  the  Ar- 
menian Sergeant  Manoukian.  .  .  . 

"Lieutenant  Ceeealdi  calmly  leads  out  the 
sections  of  Company  D,2. 

"Near  the  spot  where  Majors  Muller  and 
Moiret  are  lying,  drops  IMajor  Gaubut  of 
Battalion  A"  (p.  239). 

It  seems  as  if  they  were  all  killed,  all  those 
with  whom  we  had  become  acquainted  through 
the  previous  pages,  and  j^et,  what  was  left  of 
them  still  pushed  ahead:  "But  the  companies 
advance.  The  defenses  of  the  Chalk  Pits  are 
carried,  then  la  Targette  .  .  .  then  we  attacked 
the  hardest  position  of  all,  Neuville  Saint  Vaast, 
though  we  were  not  completely  successful  on 
that  occasion." 

Indeed,  if  ever  there  were  brave  men,  these 
were  surely  ih.ey,  and  Erlande  may  well  say  of 
them:  "All  these  men,  in  their  dull  uniforms, 
are  heroes  more  splendid  than  those  of  Friedland 
and  Rivoli.  Those  who  were  there  and  saw  them 
know  it.  As  for  the  others  .  .  .  the  others  have 
only  to  keep  quiet,  to  bow  their  heads  and  to 
believe"  (pp.  237-8). 

After  such  accounts  of  what  actually  took 
place,  the  erudite  psychological  studies  of  the 
172 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

soldiers  of  the  Great  War  pursued  by  weighing, 
measuring,  hair-splitting  "psychologists"  like 
Bonnet,  appear  ridiculously  small. 

The  fact  that  most  of  those  men  were  not 
French  by  birth  matters  not  at  all.  The 
criterion  of  blood  for  the  classification  of  living 
species  has  its  utility  in  the  case  of  animals  and 
of  lower  human  beings,  but  the  qualities  that 
these  men  displayed  are  of  a  higher  order  and  a 
moral  criterion  is  here  to  be  applied.  One  needs 
no  more  French  blood  to  be  truly  French  than 
one  needs  Greek  blood  to  be  a  Stoic  or  an  Epi- 
curean. It  is  one  of  the  finest  tributes  to  France 
that  so  many  claimed  to  be  French  in  soul,  who 
could  have  no  physiological  claim  to  that  dis- 
tinction. The  very  first  month  of  the  war, 
August,  1914,  was  not  yet  over  before  men  of  52 
nationalities  had  asked  for  enrollment  in  the 
Foreign  Legion:  8,000  Italians  moved  by  the 
spirit  of  Garibaldi,  4,500  from  the  Svvnss  repub- 
lic, almost  4,000  Russians,  300  Greeks;  naj^ 
1,000  Germans  and  even  more  Austrians;  many, 
of  course,  from  Alsace-Lorraine,  from  Belgium 
and  Serbia ;  Armenians,  Sj-rians,  Czechs,  etc. ; 
many  also  came  from  the  United  States  of 
America  and  from  Canada.  On  August  21st, 
1914,  20,000,  already  equipped  and  ready  to 
173 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

march,  were  reviewed  by  French  generals  on  the 
Esplanade  of  the  Invalides. 

In  1918,  published  war  diaries  were  already 
very  numerous.  Gabriel  Tristan  Franconi  made 
an  interesting  attempt  to  renew  the  "genre"  in 
TJn  Tel  de  I'Armee  Frangaise  (1918). 

Instead  of  emphasizing  the  individual  char- 
acteristics of  this  or  that  soldier,  the  author  of 
Tin  Tel  (So  and  So),  obtains  a  picture  of  the 
soldier,  by  rejecting  all  accidental  elements 
of  individual  men, — ^what  some  might  call  the 
personal  picturesqueness, — and  keeping  only 
such  elements  as  are  common  to  all.  In  terms  of 
mediaeval  philosophy,  he  would  be  classed  as  a 
realist,  as  contrasted  with  the  nominalists. 

There  is  one  restriction,  however;  what  Fran- 
coni pictures  is  not  the  French  soldier  of  all 
times,  but  the  French  soldier  of  the  Great  War. 
Apart  from  that,  Un  Tel  is  a  general  type :  He 
is  an  intellectual,  and  an  intelligent  man  of  no 
special  culture;  he  is  a  Parisian  and  also  a  man 
from  provincial  France;  he  is  a  man  of  refined 
tastes  and  one  of  sensual  desires;  he  belongs  to 
the  higher  walks  of  life  and  also  to  the  lower. 
And  if  one  asks :  What  makes  him  particularly 
the  man  of  the  Great  War  ?  the  answer  is :  He 
174 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

has  been  morally  tempered  by  the  great  experi- 
ence and  is  rendered  thereby  utterly  different 
from  the  man  in  uniform  who  remains  in  the 
rear,  and  from  the  civilian  who  tries  to  do  his 
share  by  paying  commonplace  compliments  to 
the  man  who  returns  from  the  front. 

That  abstract  type  once  conceived  and  created 
by  Franconi,  we  go  through  the  usual  sequence 
of  events :  Vn  Tel  in  the  mobilization  camp ;  Un 
Tel  at  the  front,  in  an  attack ;  Un  Tel  wounded 
and  taken  to  hospital ;  then  comes  the  indispen- 
sable,— but  always  charming, — picture-  of  the 
nurse  and  her  tender  care  for  the  wounded ;  then 
we  have  the  visit  of  the  convalescent  to  his  home, 
and  his  return  to  the  front.  An  original  feature, 
however,  is  to  be  found  in  the  description  which 
Un  Tel  gives  of  the  surprising  changes  which 
have  taken  place  in  the  army  during  the  short 
time  of  his  absence  from  the  front.  The  army 
which  fought  the  first  part  of  the  war  has  given 
place  to  a  new  one,  as  a  consequence  of  the  in- 
tense and  rapid  work  of  adaptation  of  mechan- 
ical devices  to  war  conditions:  new  equipment, 
new  guns,  tanks,  etc.,  etc.,  and  a  large  variety 
of  devices  to  protect  the  lives  of  the  men.  In  a 
word,  he  "discovers"  the  army  which  is  to  fight 
the  second  battle  of  the  Marne. 
175 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Franconi  gives  some  vivid  pictures  such  as 
Hist  aire  d'une  Fourragere,  or  the  recapture  of 
the  famous  Hill  308,  which  finally  relieved  Ver- 
dun (pp.  134-149).  There  are  a  few  cleverly 
drawn  individual  soldier  types  (Pote,  Tap-Tap), 
which  relieve,  by  a  welcome  note  of  real  life,  the 
impersonality  of  Vn  Tel.  Franconi  also  makes 
some  clever  and  interesting  remarks  concerning 
soldier's  sla7ig.  (Exegese  de  certaines  phrases 
militaires.)  But  even  with  these  features,  Un 
Tel  remains  a  war  diary  of  its  own  kind,  which 
offers  a  complete  contrast  to  a  work  such  as 
Gaspard.  Gaspard  is  one  individual  through 
which  the  reader  grasps, — or  thinks  he  can  grasp, 
— the  idea  of  the  general  type  of  the  French 
soldier ;  Un  Tel  is  the  description  of  that  general 
type  through  which  the  reader  is  supposed  to 
see  the  elements  of  all  the  individuals :  Gaspard 
and  Bourru,  Blue  Devil  and  Legionnaire,  in- 
fantry, aviator,  etc.,  etc. 

For  the  average  reader,  the  first  type,  Gas- 
pard, is  alone  interesting,  because  Un  Tel  is  an 
abstraction.  Franconi  ^®  himself  must  have  been 
conscious  of  that  fact,  and  that  is  probably  the 

58  Franconi  is  also  the  author  of  a  pamphlet,  Bisbur 
au  Democratic  Palace,  which  is  a  description  in  a  satiri- 
cal vein  of  military  hospitals.  Franconi  gave  his  life 
for  his  country. 

176 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

reason  why  he  introdue&d  here  and  there  cer- 
tain concrete  individuals.  For  the  thoughtful 
reader,  the  abstract  type  is  as  interesting  as  the 
concrete,  because  he  is  intelligent  enough  to  gen- 
eralize from  the  case  of  Gaspard,  or  to  imagine 
the  concrete  and  particular,  from  the  description 
of  Vn  Tel.  At  the  same  time,  even  the  intelli- 
gent reader  would  probably  derive  more  pleasure 
from  the  concrete,  because  of  the  "life"  in  it. 

During  the  fourth  year  of  the  war  the  number 
of  war  diaries  had  so  enormouslj^  increased,  that 
a  book  of  that  kind  had  to  attain  a  very  high 
degree  of  excellence  to  attract  any  attention. 
Franconi  had  been  only  partially  successful  in 
his  attempt  to  break  away  from  the  usual  style ; 
the  last  soldiers'  book  which  we  propose  to  dis- 
cuss, owed  its  success  even  at  this  late  date,  to 
sheer  excellence.     We  cannot  afford  to  pass  it  by. 

The  Memoir es  d'un  Engage  VoJontaire  by 
Binet-Valmer,  citoyen  Genevois  {Paris,  Flam- 
marion)^^  is  another  volume  to  set  in  opposition 
to  Barbusse.  The  record  of  this  volunteer  was 
indeed  brilliant.  Starting  as  an  escort  dragoon, 
he  soon  was  made  a  2nd  class  cavalryman,  then 

59  First  published  seriallv  in  Le  Jotirnal. 
177 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

section  color-bearer,  then  non-commissioned  of- 
ficer, lieutenant,  and  finally  officer  in  command 
of  a  group  of  tanks.  He  was  awarded  many 
honors ;  from  the  military  cross,  to  that  of  being 
mentioned  in  the  Order  of  the  Day  of  the  whole 
Army.  He  was  a  Genevan  by  birth,  a  descend- 
ant of  Huguenots,  and  very  early  in  life  he 
felt  a  longing  to  return  to  the  country  of  his 
ancestors.  He  therefore  went  to  Paris  while 
still  a  youth  in  his  teens,  and  there  established 
his  reputation  as  a  brilliant  writer.  He  was 
made  a  Knight  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  after  the 
publication  of  such  books  as  Les  Meieques, 
Lucien,  La  Creature.  When  the  war  broke  out 
he  was  absolutely  ignorant  of  the  soldier's  life 
and  of  a  soldier's  duties,  for  he  had  left  Geneva 
before  being  called  to  the  Swiss  colors.  He 
nevertheless  determined  to  take  part  in  the  war, 
and  being  one  of  those  men  who  always  manage 
to  get  what  they  want,  he  succeeded  (by  deceiv- 
ing the  authorities)  in  getting  enrolled  in  a 
French  regiment.  He  fought  without  training, 
and  he  fought  admirably.  His  soul  delighted  in 
all  the  terrible  glory  of  the  battlefield.  No 
writer  has  so  well  as  he  the  power  of  taking  the 
reader  with  him  into  the  thick  of  the  fight ;  of 
making  him  hear  the  racket  of  the  machine  guns, 
178 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

and  the  booming  of  the  cannon  or  the  groans  of 
the  wounded  and  the  dyin«r,  or  making  him  see 
the  headlong  tumble  of  the  stricken  horsemen. 
"Well  may  Mauelair  say  of  him:  "He  has  been 
everything,  has  known  ever}i:hing,  has  suffered 
everything." 

He  also  lived  through  those  hours  of  darkest 
tragedy  after  the  capture  of  St.  Quentin  by  the 
Germans,  and  before  the  first  battle  of  the 
Marne.  He  knew,  therefore,  the  physical  and 
moral  exhaustion  of  the  disorderly  retreat,  and 
shared  with  other  men  the  idea  that  the  end  of 
everything  was  nigh  ;  but  his  spirit  remained  un- 
daunted, and  he  determined  to  go  under,  if  need 
be,  with  the  whole  army,  with  France,  and  with 
civilization,  but  never  to  yield  to  the  treacherous, 
barbarous,  monstrous  power  of  imperial  Ger- 
man3\  His  explanation  of  the  miracle  of  the 
Marne  is  well  worth  any  that  has  been  given. 
"I  was  in  the  line,  I  understood  nothing  there- 
fore of  the  tactics,  but  after  Charleroi  I  found 
myself  with  men  who  were  in  headlong  flight : 
It  was  those  same  men  who  suddenly  refused  to 
retreat  any  further,  and  who,  vof  T<nowing  that 
they  were  going  to  win,  held  on,  each  in  his  own 
place.  The  miracle  was  in  the  heart  of  each  sol- 
dier. All  was  lost ;  it  was  going  to  be  another 
179 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

1870 ;  but  that  must  not  be !  France  was  going 
to  die ;  but  not  one  of  us  wished  to  survive  her, 
and  so  we  raised  her  from  the  dead. " 

After  the  Marne,  a  new  kind  of  torture 
awaited  him;  it  was  that  of  the  unending  in- 
activity of  the  trenches.  An  energetic  man  such 
as  Binet-Valmer  suffers  more  from  inactivity 
than  others,  and  yet  we  find  in  this  part  of  his 
diary  nothing  that  reminds  one  of  the  moral 
depression  of  Barbusse's  men.  It  is  certainly 
not  that  he  has  hesitated  to  tell  the  whole  truth, 
for  his  Lncien  proves  pretty  conclusively  that  he 
loves  the  "whole  truth"  and  dares  to  speak  it; 
we  are  therefore  led  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
state  of  mind  described  by  Barbusse  did  not 
exist.  As  to  Binet-Valmer  himself,  instead  of 
settling  down  in  the  trenches  to  whine  or  to 
write  a  tragic  account  of  them,  he  keeps  active. 
Noticing  that  machine  gun  crews  are  more  active 
than  the  infantry,  he  has  no  rest  until  he  is 
permitted  to  enter  a  military  school  for  the 
training  of  auto-machine  gunners  for  the 
cavalry.  But  his  luck  abandons  him  for  a  time : 
he  is  never  at  posts  where  actual  fighting  takes 
place ;  even  when  he  is  transferred  to  the  Verdun 
front  he  is  not  fortunate  enough  to  repeat  his 
experience  of  the  Marne.  Meanwhile,  he  be- 
180 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

comes  enthusiastic  over  the  deeds  of  his  com- 
rades. It  is  with  delight  that  he  greets  the  new 
weapon:  the  tank:  the  "artillery  of  attack." 
He  witnesses  the  foolhardiness  of  the  men  in 
charge  of  those  machines  which  at  first  gave 
little  in  the  way  of  results  but  were  full  of 
promise.  He  therefore  enters  the  tank  corps  on 
January  17th,  1917,  and  after  some  time  is  placed 
in  command  of  three  whippets  {sangliers).  It 
was  during  his  first  battle,  the  victorious  attack 
at  Malmaison,  near  the  Chemin  des  Dames,  that 
he  was  wounded.  He  takes  advantage  of  his 
confinement  in  hospital  to  write  these  Memoires. 

To  those  who  would  understand  why  the 
French  were  victorious,  this  book  will  bring 
abundant  information. 

With  Binet-Valmer  we  close  the  list  of  the 
leading  war  diaries  by  soldiers. 
*         *         * 

With  the  exception  of  a  note  on  Jacques 
Fierre's  80,000  milles  en  Torpilleur,  we  have 
made  no  mention  so  far  of  books  written  by 
sailors. 

The  army  played  of  course  an  incomparably 
greater  part  in  the  war  than  the  navy,  and  that 
is  sufficient  to  explain  the  far  lesser  number  of 
books  dealing  with  naval  warfare. 
181 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  best  known  of  them  is  Rene  Milan's  Les 
'Vagal)onds  de  la  Gloire  (in  three  series, 
1916  ff).*^*' 

The  excellent  spirit  of  the  French  navy  is 
beautifully  set  forth  in  those  volumes,  and  were 
it  only  to  learn  how  the  sailors  did  their  duty, 
how  eager  they  were  to  do  it,  the  volumes  would 
be  well  worth  reading.  If  more  glorious  or  more 
spectacular  deeds  are  not  reported,  it  is  simply 
because  the  enemy  gave  the  sailors  no  oppor- 
tunity to  perform  them. 

Milan  is  an  excellent  writer. 

But  there  is  another  book  by  a  sailor  which 
has  so  special  a  message  to  deliver,  offers  so 
much  information  upon  a  little  known  aspect  of 
the  war,  and  is  so  absorbing  in  tragic  interest, 
that    no    one    can    afford    to    leave   it   unread: 

Odyssee    d'un    Transport    Torpille    by    Y 

(1918).  Large  fragments  had  already  appeared 
in  the  Beviie  de  Paris.'^^ 

It  tells  in  a  series  of  letters  addressed  by  one 
of  the  officers  to  a  friend  of  his  who  is  serving  on 

f'O  The  first  volume  alone  is  entirely  devoted  to  the 
navy.  The  second,  Trois  Etapes,  deals  partly  with  hy- 
droplanes; and  the  third,  Matelots  aeriens,  gives  an 
account  of  the  part  played  by  the  dirigibles  of  the 
Allies  in  the  second  part  of  the  war. 

61  The  value  of  this  book  was  very  quickly  recognized 
in  other  countries  than  France.     Houghton  MiiBin  and 
Co.  lost  no  time  in  issuing  a  translation. 
182 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

a  war  cruiser  the  story  of  the  Pamir,  a  merchant 
vessel  of  3,000  tons  which  the  French  govern- 
ment requisitioned  immediately  the  war  broke 
out,  and  for  the  use  of  which  it  paid  the  owners 
1,000  francs  a  day. 

The  letters,  written  in  a  vivid,  yet  sober  style, 
explain  admirably,  but  without  the  least  sugges- 
tion of  boasting,  the  immense  share  which  the 
merchant  navy  had  in  the  winning  of  the  war 
by  transporting  not  onlj^  troops  and  arms,  but 
victuals,  timbers  for  the  trenches,  coal,  shelters, 
and  a  thousand  other  things  necessary  for  the 
carrying  on  of  the  war.  ,  Ever  on  the  way,  or 
hurriedly  loading  or  unloading,  that  vessel, — one 
of  thousands  similarly  engaged, — saved  the 
Allies  from  a  crushing  defeat.  The  book  grips 
and  holds  the  interest  of  the  reader,  even  though 
there  are  no  showy  uniforms,  no  flags,  no  guns, 
no  spectacular  scenes  of  anj'  kind.  Two  men 
claim  our  attention:     Captain  Forgues,  and  his 

mate,  Y ,  the  author  of  the  letters.     They 

are  both  striking  types  of  French  sailors,  who, 
from  the  first  day  of  the  war,  do  their  duty,  and 

more.     Y is  a  young  man;  he  is  engaged 

to  be  married,  and,  as  the  war  goes  on  month 
after  month,  he  finall}'  takes  advantage  of  a  fur- 
lough to  marry.     He  is  supremely  and  discreetly 
183 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

happy,  he  has  just  received  word  that  the  crown- 
ing happiness  is  to  be  added  to  the  first — ^that 
of  fatherhood, — when  everything  ends  abruptly. 
Germany  has  just  started  the  ruthless  submarine 
warfare,  and  the  Pamir  is  one  of  her  first  vic- 
tims ;  she  disappears  leaving  no  trace  whatever. 

Y never   indulges  in   patriotic  talk  nor 

in  any  other  form  of  sentimentality;  his  book  is 
one  of  the  most  virile,  sincere  and  sober  ones  of 
the  war;  and  yet,  this  man  who  does  nothing 
whatever  to  solicit  our  sympathy,  who  would, 
indeed,  resolutely  set  it  aside,  has  more  than  any 
other  the  gift  of  calling  it  forth. 

But  our  sympathy  and  admiration  for  the 
man  of  duty  is  darkened  as  we  read  on  and 
gradually  come  to  realize  the  injustice  of  which 
he  and  many  of  his  comrades  in  the  merchant 
service  were  the  victims.  A  tragic  contrast  be- 
tween Germany  and  France  establishes  itself  in 
one 's  mind :  a  contrast  which  it  hurts  one  to  ad- 
mit, but  which  the  circumstances  related  in  this 
book  thrust  upon  one  with  irresistible  force.  It 
may  be  expressed  thus :  In  Germany  there  is  a 
remarkably  efficient  government  to  protect  ras- 
cals or  moral  dunces  like  those  who  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  ordered  to  commit  unspeakable 
atrocities;  in  France,  there  is  an  abominably 
184 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

careless  and  inefficient  government  which  leaves 
without  protection  men  as  noble  minded  as  can 
be  found  am'where  on  the  face  of  the  earth. 

On  land,  for  the  army,  something  was  done, 
as  the  second  Battle  of  the  Marne  shows,  but  on 
the  sea  a  costly  negligence  prevailed. 

The  men  in  office  met  the  demands  for  protec- 
tion which  these  men  who  had  seen  with  their 
own  eyes  and  who  had  experience,  ventured  to 
make,  by  the  incrediblj^  naive  refrain:  *'We 
tell  you  that  there  is  no  submarine  menace :  do 
not  our  newspapers  sa}^  so?  There  is  no  sub- 
marine danger ! ' '  Meanwhile,  the  sailors  who 
knew  how  they  might  be  saved,  realized  at  the 
same  time  that  they  would  not  be.  The  heart 
sickens  at  the  thought  of  all  the  suffering  en- 
dured by  those  noble  fellows,  and  all  the  needless 
sorrow  that  was  brought  to  their  homes,  by  the 
culpable  indifference  of  those  miserables  slackers 
in  office.  For  what  were  the  demands  of  the 
sailors,  after  all,  that  they  could  not  be  met  ? 
"Wireless  apparatus  and  guns,  which  might  have 
been  supplied  at  relatively  little  cost ! 

It  was  only  after  February,  1917,  when  it  be- 
came evident  that  the  fate  of  those  on  land  de- 
pended upon  the  safety  of  the  seas,  and  after  a 
large  number  of  brave  seamen  had  been  lost  with 
185 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

their  ships,  that  the  government  began  to  bestir 
itself. 

The  book,  though  not  intended  as  such,  is  a 
terrible  indictment  of  the  allied  governments, 
and  particularly  of  the  French. 

If  it  is  right, — and,  surely,  no  morally  sound 
person  will  care  to  deny  it ! — that  the  Kaiser  and 
his  aiders  and  abettors  be  arraigned  before  a 
world-court  on  a  charge  of  ordering  and  organiz- 
ing piracy,  it  would  be  right  also  to  bring  to 
judgment  those  French  officials  who  did  nothing 
to  thwart  the  criminal  designs  of  the  enemy. 
This  book  ought  not  to  be  forgotten  now  that  the 
war  is  over.  Public  opinion  all  the  world  over, 
if  enlightened  by  it,  could  be  brought  to  bear 
upon  France  to  force  her  to  better  her  own  gov- 
ernment for  the  sake  of  her  splendid  seamen.*'^ 

62  We  quote  below  in  the  savory  French  of  the  author 
a  few  characteristic  statements: 

"Arrange  comme  tu  voudras.  la  France  a  besoin  du 
monde  entier  pour  gagner  sa  victoire,  et  comme  il  n'y  a 
pas  de  chemins  de  fer  pour  aller  en  Australie,  en  Ar- 
gentine ou  aux  Etats  Unis,  ni  dans  aucun  autre  pays  qui 
nous  refilent  de  la  mati&re  premiere,  on  etait  bel  et  bien 
cuit  sans  la  marine  marchande"   (p.  241). 

"M'est  avis  que  Mousseux  (a  seaman  on  board  the 
Pamir)  pense  aussi  que  si  nous  gagnons  la  victoire  ga 
ne  sera  pas  faute  de  lui  avoir  tourne  le  dos.  ...  II  pense 
comme  nous,  et  Ton  est  vite  tombe  d'accord  que  la  marine 
marchande  est  quasiment  offerte  aux  sous-marins  boches 
et  que  ca  durera  ce  que  Qa  durera"  (pp.  202-203). 

And  elsewhere:  "Dire  qu'un  pays  comme  le  nOtre  oil 
186 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 


It  would  be  interesting,  at  this  juncture,  to  com- 
pare the  recollections  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  with  those  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Great 
War.  This  cannot  be  done  in  detail  here.  Let  it  be 
said,  however,  that  one  cannot  but  be  struck  by  the 
.  similarity  of  their  experiences.  The  main  difference 
lies  in  that  the  Franco-Prussian  war  having  lasted 
practically  only  a  few  weeks,  while  the  Great  War 
lasted  almost  four  years  and  a  half,  the  hardships, 
the  discouragement,  the  inconceivably  brutal  behavior 
of  the  Germans,  could,  in  one  case,  be  forgotten  more 
rapidly,  (except  by  the  comparatively  few  who  were 
directly  affected),  whereas  in  the  last  war,  the  fact 
that  such  things  kept  on  for  so  long,  impressed  them 
much  more  deeply  upon  the  mind  of  the  world. 

We  knew  something  about  the  sufferings  caused  by 
mistakes  of  the  higher  command  and  the  poor  organ- 
ization of  the  commissariat  and  of  the  sanitary  corps, 
because  Zola,  in  La  Debacle  (1893),  and  the  Brothel's 
Margueritte  in  Le  Desastre  (1903),  had  reminded  us 
of  them.  But  a  perusal  of  the  personal  recollections 
of  the  soldiers  of  1870,  in  the  light  of  what  the 
present  war  has  taught  us,  will  cause  us  less  astonish- 
ment than  would  have  been  the  case  some  years  ago. 

tout  le  monde  se  fait  casser  la  niargoulette  en  riant,  est 
traite  de  la  sorte  pour  couvrir  une  bande  d'imprevoy- 
ants!  C'est  il  rire  jusqu'aii  ju<:c>ment  dernier"  (p.  229). 
And  there  are  pages  in  which  he  shows  that  every- 
where "les  routes  secrf'tes  sent  des  routes  de  desastre, 
car  toujours  les  Allemands,  par  leurs  espions,  sent  ren- 
seignes  (he  gives  several  heartrending  instances).  Auesi 
Fourgues  n'^chappe  si  longtemps  que  parce  que  11  ne  va 
pas  dans  ces  routes  secretes"  (p.  205). 
187 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

In  1870,  as  in  this  war,  the  witness  is  impressed  by 
the  splendid  fighting  qualities  of  the  French  soldiers: 
not  only  by  their  dash,  but  also  by  their  endurance 
under  the  most  trying  circumstances.  In  reading,  for 
instance,  the  stirring  book  of  Ludovic  Halevy, 
L'lnvasion,  Souvenirs  et  recits  (1872),  one  becomes 
aware  of  the  fact  that  the  circumstances  which  ac- 
companied the  defeat  of  the  army  in  1870,  were  as 
trying  as  the  gloomy  days  before  the  Marne  and 
the  endless  waiting  in  the  soaked  and  filthy  trenches. 

We  would  advise  the  reader  to  turn  also  to 
Amedee  Achard's  Recits  d'un  Soldat  (1895),  and, 
in  that  book,  more  particularly  to  the  passages 
which  illustrate  the  fundamentally  barbarous  nature 
of  the  Gei;mans,  and  which  suggest  striking  parallels 
between  1870  and  1914.  Reference  has  been  made 
above  to  the  wanton  destruction  of  scientific  col- 
lections in  1870 ;  in  1914,  they  specialized  in  the 
ruining  of  industrial  implements,  of  trees,  and  of 
churches;  it  was  the  same  lack  of  culture.  Achard 
had  occasion  to  witness  in  1870  their  lack  of  self- 
resi^eet  and  of  humanity :  He  had  served  as  a  volun- 
teer, in  the  army  of  Sedan  and  saw  how  little  atten- 
tion the  Germans  showed  to  the  white  flag.  "The  flag 
of  truce  hoisted  by  us  on  the  ramparts  did  not  stop 
the  attack,  but  only  prevented  us  from  going  on  with 
the  defense."  It  was  the  same  principle,  only  carried 
a  little  further,  that  permitted  the  Germans  to  make 
use  of  stretchei-s  borne  by  men  clad  in  Red  Cross 
uniforms,  to  bring  up,  free  from  molestation,  machine 
guns  which  they  used  to  win  fort  Douaumont.  One 
should  read  also,  in  the  same  book,  the  story  of  the 
188 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

prisoners  of  Sedan  when  they  were  herded  together  in 
the  peninsula  of  Glaires,  (formed  by  a  curve  of  the 
Meuse),  and  there  allowed,  or  rather  condemned,  to 
die  of  hunger,  being  suljjected  meanwhile  to  the  worst 
insults  from  unchivalrous  officers.  Achard  himself 
was,  as  a  great  favor,  taken  with  a  contingent  of 
prisoners"  and  deported  into  Germany.  The  story  of 
this  journey  of  starving  men  traveling  under  escort, 
is  one  of  the  vilest  banditism.  Even  the  wounded 
were  not  allowed  any  food ;  when  they  lagged  behind, 
they  were  driven  forward  with  the  butts  of  rifles,  and 
when  they  gave  out  completely,  they  wei"e  mercilessly 
shot.  The  heart  sickens  in  reading  of  such  ignoble 
behavior.  They  had  not  changed,  except  for  the 
worse,  between  1870  and  1914;  would  it  not  be  naive 
to  expect  that  they  will  change  after  1918?  ^^ 

NON-COMBATAXTS   AND   THE   WaR 

Our  account  of  War  Literature  would  be  in- 
complete indeed  if  we  did  not  devote  some  pages 
to  books  dealing  with  the  effects  of  the  war  upon 
the  civilian  population. 

That  non-combatants  had  their  share  of  trials 
needs  no  proof.  The  legend  of  Forain's 
famous  cartoon  has  expressed  it  admirably : 
"Fourvu  qu'ils  tiennent!  Qui  gaf  Les  divils." 
(L'Opinion,  Jan.  1915.) 

63  Some    instances    of    German     cruelty    during    the 
Franco-Prussian   war,   were  familiar  to  us  through  the 
writings  of  ^laupassant  and  of  Daudet;   but  treated  as 
fiction,  they  failed  to  carry  conviction. 
\89 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Let  us  consider  first  of  all  such  books  as  tell 
us  of  the  civilians  who  were  caught  up  in  the 
maelstrom  of  the  war.  Later,  we  shall  deal  with 
books  describing  the  civilians  in  the  rear. 

Civilians  of  the  war  zone  on  the  Allies'  side 
of  the  battle  line,  have  been  described  in 
Emmanuel  Bourcier's  pleasing  little  book  Gens 
du  Front  (1917).  Bourcier  gives  us  charming 
sketches  of  village  life  near  the  front  during  the 
days  of  intermittent  shelling  by  the  Germans, 
and  until  one  day  every  house  was  leveled  to  the 
ground  by  heavy  bombardment. 

One  of  the  best  books  of  the  war, — best  with 
regard  both  to  style  and  to  content, — is  Isabelle 
Rimbaud's  Dans  les  Remous  de  la  Bataille 
{Charleroi,  the  Marne  and  Rheims)  (1916). 
The  author  is  the  sister  of  the  famous  poet  Ar- 
thur Rimbaud,'^*  and  she  gives  a  very  vivid  and 
yet  sober  account  of  the  debacle  of  the  civilians 
fleeing  before  the  Germans  in  the  dark  days  of 
August  and  September,  1914.  The  first  chapters 
picture  the  effects  of  the  mobilization  upon  the 
peasants.''^     Then  came  the  days  of  emigration, 

64  Her  home  was  at  Roches,  a  village  in  the  Ardennes. 

65  We  have  many  pictures  of  the  state  of  mind  of  the 
Parisians  (and  of  the  habitants  of  other  large  towns) 
during  the  early  days  of  the  war,  and  amongst  them, 
Marcelle  Tinayre's,  in  her  novel,  Veillee  des  Armea, 
which  is  a  very  worthy  counterpart  of  this  work. 

190 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

the  continuous  flow  of  refugees.  Tlie  author 
joins  the  sad  procession  and  tells  of  her  experi- 
ences until  the  day  when  she  successfully  brings 
her  sick  husband  into  Paris. 

Those  who  like  to  make  comparisons  will  un- 
doubtedly find  it  interesting  to  establish  one  be- 
tween this  book  and  another  of  a  similar  kind, 
viz.,  Madame  Huard's  famous  My  Home  on  the 
Field  of  Uonor.  IMadame  Huard,  though  French 
by  marriage,  is  an  American  l)y  birth,  and  while 
she  feels  deeply  for  the  poor  sutfering  people 
whom  she  saw,  the  chief  impression  w^hich  the 
book  leaves  is  that  of  the  energy  and  resourceful- 
ness of  that  remarkable  woman  in  every  trying 
emergency.  The  impression  created  by  Isabelle 
Rimbaud's  book  is  very  different.  She  has  as 
much  courage  and  initiative  as  Madame  Huard, 
but  as  one  turns  over  the  last  page  of  her  book, 
one  is  conscious  not  so  much  of  a  feeling  of 
admiration  for  the  author,  as  of  an  immense 
Christian  sympathy  for  the  innocent,  helpless 
victims  of  the  war,  and  a  sacred  horror  like  that 
which  the  ancients  had  of  blind,  remorseless 
Fate. 

There  were  also  civilians  who  underwent  the 
hardships  of  war  on  the  other  side  of  the  battle 
191 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

line ;  and  their  lot  was  worse.  The  full  story  of 
their  sufferings  has  been  published  gradually  as 
towns  and  villages  were  freed  of  the  invaders, 
and  when  there  was  no  more  danger  of  bringing 
on  reprisals  on  French  prisoners  in  Germany: 
that  is,  since  the  armistice.  But  even  during  the 
war  some  books  came  out  which  were  eagerly 
read.  The  reports  of  Commissions  on  German 
barbarities  and  atrocities,  eloquent  as  they  are 
in  their  bare  statements  of  facts,  lie  outside  of 
our  study.  But  we  can  mention  a  little  volume 
which  has  been  translated  into  English  and  has 
been  much  read  in  America;  we  refer  to  Mar- 
guerite Yerta's  Les  six  Femmes  et  I'Invasion, 
Aout  1914—Fevrier  1916  (1917).  The  six 
women  whose  husbands  were  fighting  for 
France,  remained  in  their  town,  daring  to  face 
the  humiliations  of  the  vanquished.  They  felt 
certain,  however,  that  the  German  successes 
were  only  temporary,  and  they  acted  accord- 
ingly, retaining  their  dignity  in  spite  of  their 
unfortunate  destiny.*'*' 

66  Under  this  heading  we  should  also  place  the  follow- 
ing accounts  by  women:  H.  Celarie's  Sous  les  Obus, 
Journal  d'une  jeune  Lorraine,  (1914-16),  with  illustra- 
tions; Madame  d'Urville's  Filles  de  Metz,  (1919)  ;  Ma- 
dame Leune,  Tels  qit'ils  sonf,  Xotes  d'une  Infirmiere  de 
la  Croix  Rouge.  Madame  Leune  was  for  a  time  in  a  hos- 
pital behind  the  German  lines,  at  Lille;  later  she  suc- 
192 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Certainly  one  of  the  most  illuminating  docu- 
ments of  the  war,  one  which  casts  a  flood  of  light 
on  the  suffering  of  the  people  in  the  invaded 
regions,  and  on  the  really  barbarous  mentality  of 
the  Germans,  is  the  little  volume :  Le  Martyre  de 
Lens,  Trois  annces  de  captivite,  by  Emile  Basly, 
deputy  mayor  of  Lens  (Plon,  1918). 

The  author  had  started  life  as  a  miner  in  "La 
Ville  Noire";  he  was  a  socialist  and  had  been 
elected  mayor  of  that  town  of  40,000  inhabitants. 
He  writes  very  modestly  of  the  share  which  he 
had  in  keeping  up  the  "morale"  of  the  popula- 
tion, and  one  guesses  that  he  did  a  great  deal 
more  than  he  has  reported.  He  warns  his 
readers  not  to  look  for  literature  in  his  memoirs. 
And  yet  what  he  produces  is  the  best  kind  of 
literature;  one  which,  though  dispensing  with 
artificial  adornments,  goes  straight  to  the  heart. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  write  in  a  more  sober 
style;  every  line  bears  the  impress  of  truth. 
After  each  chapter,  one  is  inclined  to  repeat 
the  word  so  often  heard  from  those  who  wit- 
nessed the  courage  of  the  French  civilian  popula- 

ceeded  in  reentering  France  by  way  of  Switzerland; 
Madame  Emmanuel  Colombel's  Journal  d'unc  Infirmiere 
d' Alsace.  She  also  was  caught  by  the  invasion  in  her 
hospital  in  Arras  during  tlie  short  occupation  of  that 
town  by  the  Germans. 

193 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tion  during  the  stormy  days  of  the  war,  "Les 
braves  gens ! ' '  Few  crhnes  of  a  sensational 
character  are  reported  as  having  taken  place 
during  the  first  two  years  of  the  war.*^^  But  how 
cruel  was  the  moral  torment  of  being  forced  to 
put  up  for  weeks,  months  and  years,  with  vexa- 
tions from  an  arrogant,  and  stupid  foe !  Those 
brutal  soldiers  would  come  and  demand  anything 
and  everything  that  they  fancied  at  the  mo- 
ment; underwear,  watches,  shoes,  clothing;  one 
of  them  even  demanded  a  mandolin;  several 
second-lieutenants  particularly  wanted  "fixe- 
moustaches" — and  when  the  mayor  refused  to 
supply  these  articles,  they  would  go  and  plunder 
the  store.  Not  content  with  looting  what  they 
fancied,  they  would  wantonly  destroy  what  they 
did  not  want  or  could  not  take  away.  The 
author  one  day  saw  them  throw  out  into  the 
street  jewelry,  cigars  and  glassware  after  help- 
ing themselves.  He  also  saw  a  gang  headed  by 
an  officer,  force  the  door  of  a  grocery  shop,  open 
cans  of  meat  and  fruit  with  hammers,  spoil  the 
precious  and  too  rare  food  which  they  could  not 

67  Basly  relates  one  particularly  horrible  crime  during 
that  period.  A  workingman,  returning  to  his  half- 
starved  family,  sees  a  well-fed  German  attempting  to 
steal  a  loaf — their  only  food  for  that  day — from  his  chil- 
dren. He  protests,  and  a  few  minutes  later  he  is  dragged 
away  from  wife  and  children,  and  shot. 
194 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

eat,  after  plunging  their  hands  into  the  fruit 
or  meat  cans,  pulling  out  the  contents  and  de- 
vouring them. 

Some  revolting  episodes  are  related  on  pp. 
70-77. 

Two  lieutenants  introduced  themselves  into  a 
large  silent  house,  the  curtains  of  which  were 
drawn.  Madame  Sevart,  who  owned  the  prop- 
erty, had  been  buried  on  the  previous  day.  The 
lieutenants  noticing  that  some  of  the  desks  had 
been  surrounded  by  long  strips  of  paper  and 
sealed,  inquired  of  the  keeper : 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  this?" 

The  man  explained  that  it  was  a  formality 
demanded  by  the  law,  pending  the  claim  of  the 
property  by  the  rightful  heirs.  But  the  officer 
did  not  allow. him  to  complete  his  explanation — 
"and  so  you  don't  trust  us!"  he  shouted,  and 
drawing  his  sword  he  cut  the  seals,  opened  the 
drawers,  threw  the  documents  which  they  con- 
tained on  the  floor  and  trampled  on  them. 

It  was  only  the  day  before  that  death  had 
passed  that  way  (pp.  70-71). 

The  invaders  distinguished  themselves  by  an 

inconceivable  lack  of  an}'  sense  of  honor.     Under 

the   protection   of  the    German   authorities,    a 

quarter-master     general     commandeered     food, 

195 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

liquor  and  wines, — and  then  went  to  sell  them 
to  the  townspeople  who  dared  not  refuse  to  buy, 
and  had  to  pay  the  exorbitant  price  which  he 
demanded.  During  bombardments,  while  the 
people  were  forced  to  retire  into  their  cellars, 
the  soldiers,  who  were  not  allowed  to  take 
shelter,  would  improve  the  hour  by  going  the 
round  of  the  town  to  steal  fowls. 

That  the  German  authorities  called  to  their 
aid  professional  crooks,  in  order  the  better  to 
harass  the  people  of  Lens,  cannot  surprise  us 
very  much  after  all  that  we  have  learned  from 
other  sources,  but  one  cannot  conceive  of  the 
British,  French  or  American  armies  of  occupa- 
tion resorting  to  such  things.  And  what  excuse 
could  be  found  for  the  following  senseless  act  of 
cruelty?  The  deported  French  women  were  at 
last  being  allowed  to  return  to  France.  Before 
crossing  the  frontier,  they  were  examined  by  well 
dressed  German  women,  not  without  education 
apparently,  who  subjected  them  to  the  indignity 
of  making  them  strip.  One  poor  woman  had 
concealed  in  her  clothing  a  photograph  of  her 
little  girl,  her  dearest  treasure.  A  German 
woman  saw  it,  pounced  upon  it,  examined  it 
and  inquired:  "This  is  the  photograph  of 
196 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

your  little  girl?"— "Yes,  Madam"— "Well 
then  look,"  she  said;  and  this  German  woman 
tore  the  photograph  into  small  squares.  She 
did  it  slowly  and  deliberately,  as  if  she  found 
satisfaction  in  destroying  under  her  claws  the 
smiling  young  features  of  that  little  child's 
face. 

But,  do  what  they  would,  the  Germans  did  not 
succeed  in  breaking  the  spirit  of  that  admirable 
people,  who  clung  together  and  refused  to  yield. 
Basly  relates  a  touching  example  of  resolution 
and  cooperation:  The  flour  mills  upon  which 
the  town  depended  for  its  supply  of  bread  were 
put  out  of  order,  and  the  flour  began  to  fail; 
then  all  the  women  of  the  town  came  with  their 
tiny  coffee  mills,  and  holding  them  firmly  be- 
tween their  knees,  they  ground  wheat  for  long 
hours,  day  after  day.  How  beautiful,  too,  is 
his  account  of  the  way  in  which  even  the  poorest 
came  forward  with  their  pennies,  when  the 
enemy  demanded  monstrous  sums  of  money. 
How  tragic  the  story  of  how,  when  they  were 
locked  up  in  their  cellars  for  many  days  and 
nights,  they  bored  tunnels  through  the  walls 
and  under  the  streets,  so  that  they  might  see 
their  neighbors  and  gather  courage  and  comfort 
197 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

from  each  other.  They  saw  their  houses  ran- 
sacked,^^ and  then  dynamited,  and  the  mines, 
these  mines  of  Lens,  the  wealth  of  the  town  and 
of  the  neighborhood,  with  their  galleries  which 
had  been  dug  and  built  by  the  labor  of  many 
generations  of  workers,  wrecked  hy  wicked 
enemies  who  aimed  not  only  at  destroying  the 
present,  but  the  future  also,  and  would  have 
stamped  out  even  hope.  To  perpetrate  some  of 
their  acts  of  vandalism,  they  were  driven  to 
make  use  of  convicts,  for  the  soldiers,  repulsive 
brutes  though  they  were,  would  not  go  to  the 
lengths  that  were  expected  of  them.  And 
finally  those  citizens  who  had  not  fled,  or  had 
not  been  killed,  were  deported. 

In  the  eighth  chapter,  of  the  second  part, 
Injures  aux  femmes  frangaises,  Basly  relates 
one  of  the  ugliest  incidents  of  the  occupation  of 
Lens.  It  is  difficult  to  see  how  Germans  of 
future  generations  will  be  able  to  defend  their 
Kultur  after  this:  "One  day  an  order  was 
brought  to  me  from  the  Kommandantur.  I  tore 
it  up  after  glancing  at  it  hurriedly.  It  con- 
cerned a  medical  examination  of  the  women  of 

68  10,000  workers'  cottages  were  razed  to  the  ground, 
and  their  gardens  and  fruit  trees  systematically  de- 
stroyed. 

198 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Lens;  it  could  only  refer  to  prostitutes,  I 
thought,  and*  was  therefore  a  matter  of  routine 
which  did  not  concern  me. — But  it  soon  became 
evident  that  I  was  mistaken.  The  order  con- 
cerned all  the  women  of  the  city! — was  it  pos- 
sible? What  were  our  tormentors  aiming  at? 
"Were  they  so  anxious  to  dishonor  themselves  in 
the  eyes  of  the  whole  world  ?  Pillage,  arson,  im- 
prisonments, shootings,  those  were  customarj' 
atrocities;  we  had  accepted  them  stoically,  as 
fatal  necessities  of  our  position.  But  could  we 
submit  to  the  shame  which  threatened  us? 
Scenes  of  savagery  were  reported  from  neighbor- 
ing townships.  Our  women,"  said  the  mayor 
of  H.,  "refused  to  respond  to  the  summons; 
soldiers  stopped  them  on  the  highways;  paying 
no  attention  to  their  cries,  they  violently  dragged 
their  \'ictims  to  a  room  of  the  town-hall  where 
the  major  was  waiting  for  them !  the  devils ! ' ' 

In  Lens  also  they  refused.  But  a  few  days 
later  certain  women  were  commanded  to  appear 
at  the  Kommandantur  under  some  pretext  or 
other, — when  they  came  brutal  hands  were  laid 
on  them,  and  they  were  locked  up  with  the 
phj'sicians. — This  did  not  last  long.  All  the 
women  henceforth  refused  to  go,  under  any  cir- 
cumstances, to  the  Kommandantur.  Finally,  a 
199 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

French  physician  assumed  the  task  of  issuing 
certificates,  and  the  Germans  themselves  were 
not  sorry  to  end  the  matter  thus. 

After  the  girls  and  women,  it  was  the  turn 
of  the  boys  to  be  tormented.  Small  boys  were 
sent  to  dig  trenches,  and  they  returned  broken 
in  health,  mere  ghosts  of  what  they  had  been. 
In  vain  the  parents  pleaded  for  their  release. 
Officers  had  said  that  they  must  be  reduced  by 
any  means,  and  to  show  sj^mpathy  for  the  chil- 
dren was  considered  a  crime  of  lese  majeste.*'^ 

69  A  moving  description  of  the  horrors  committed  in 
the  occupied  districts  will  be  found  in  a  little  book  by 
Benjamin  Vallotton,  a  Swiss  writer  of  repute,  Au  pays 
de  la  mort  ( 1917) . 

The  same  subject  has  been  treated  in  a  remarkable 
manner  by  a  man  who  has  acquired  great  reputation  as 
a  historian :  Arthur  Chuquet,  member  of  the  Institute, 
in  his  volumes  De  Frederic  II  a  Guillaiime  II,  {Chiffons 
de  papier,  Reims  et  Dresde,  Alsace  et  Belgique) ,  and  es- 
pecially I'roiiesses  Allemandes  1914-1916  (La  Guerre  en 
Flandres,  La  Meuse  et  la  Meurthe,  Senlis  et  Gerbeviller, 
Les  Cornets  dcs  ^  andales) . 

The  behavior  of  the  Germans  in  the  Lens  region  gen- 
erally, was  described  after  the  signing  of  the  Armistice, 
in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  by  M.  Delory,  representa- 
tive for  the  city  of  Lille.  We  quote  the  following  pas- 
sage of  his  speech  from  the  Bulletin  of  the  Paris  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  January,  1919: 

"In  1916,  there  was  the  carrying  off  of  women  and 
children  in  the  middle  of  the  night  by  German  soldiery; 
the  streets  were  lined  with  machine-guns,  women  and 
children  roused  from  sleep,  the  German  soldiers  remain- 
ing in  their  bedrooms  while  they  dressed;  and  all  of 
them,  without  distinction  of  class,  were  medically  ex- 
200 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

Among  the  books  that  have  come  out  since  the 
Armistice  in  November,  1918 — and  all  support- 
ing- the  testimony  of  Bash' — we  mention:  Al- 
bert Droulers,  Sous  le  Foing  de  Fer:  Quatre 
ans  dans  un  Faubourg  de  Lille  (1918).  There 
is  no  passion  in  this  volume,  no  dwelling  on 
sensational  crimes,  but  rather  the  author  brings 
out  the  behavior  of  the  Germans  when  it  be- 
traj's  the  brutishness  of  their  souls.  Practi- 
cally the  only  means  of  persuasion  they  know 
of  are  blows;  they  find  a  develish  pleasure  in 
imposing  moral  sufferings  on  mothers  by  tortur- 
ing the  children  under  their  eyes;  they  show 
savage  fury  at  stubborn  resistance ; — and  never 
one  example  when  a  German  was  moved  by 
courage  in  their  enemies,  or  yielded  out  of  ad- 

amined.  Since  this,  at  several  different  times  men — I 
niisjlit  say  children — and  old  men  have  been  carried 
off.  comjjclled  to  work  nnder  the  threat  of  blows  or  of 
beino-  deprived  of  food.  It  was  not  for  the  work  author- 
ized by  the  Convention  of  Berne;  but  for  the  erection  of 
shelters  for  German  soldiers,  or  for  transportin-:  muni 
tions,  and  at  only  a  few  kilometers  from  the  lines,  so 
that  many  of  them  were  wounded  by  fire  from  our  own 
guns. 

"The  plain  of  Lens  gives  one  the  idea  of  a  coinitry  thnt 
had  been  handed  over  to  a  builder  havinj;  at  his  disposal 
formidable  machines  for  the  purpose  of  pullinii  down 
houses.  There  are  no  traces  of  any  basements  or  foun- 
dations left.  At  Douai  the  skeletons  of  buildings  are 
8till  standing,  but  the  place  is  like  a  dead  city,  without 
inhabitants  or  furniture." 

201 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

miration  for  heroism :  and  this  is  perhaps  the 
worst  of  it  all!  Martin-]\Iarny,  Quaire  ans  avec 
les  Barhares,  Lille  pendant  VOccupation  alle- 
mande  (1919)  ;  Hazard,  Lille,  La  Ville  envahie 
(1919)  ;  Pierre  Bosc,  Les  Allemands  a  Lille 
(1919).  .  .  .  Then  Ernest  Colin,  Saint-Die  sous 
la  Botte  (1919)  ;  Henriette  Celarie,  Quand 
"lis"  etaient  a  Saint-Quentin  (1919).  And  for 
details  relative  to  the  roughness  with  which  Ger- 
mans treated  civilian  hostages  in  internment 
camps,  see  the  series  of  articles  published  by  the 
same  H.  Celarie  in  the  Revue  des  Dewx-Mondes 
(1918-19). 

Several  soldier  prisoners'  diaries  have  been 
published,  or  rather,  should  we  say,  those  parts 
of  the  diaries  which  their  authors  were  able  to 
smuggle  out  of  Germany,  or  to  reconstitute  from 
memory.  One  of  the  first  to  appear  was  that  of 
A.  Warnod,  Priso7inier  de  Guerre,  Notes  et 
Croquis  de  VAllemagne  (1916).  The  author,  a 
journalist  and  artist,  was  made  a  prisoner  dur- 
ing the  first  weeks  of  the  war.  He  has  some 
moving  incidents  such  as  that  of  the  little  boy  of 
thirteen  against  whom  a  ridiculous  accusation  of 
sniping  was  brought,  because  he  was  seen  play- 
ing with  a  cartridge  case,  and  who  was  brutally 
202 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

carried  off  from  his  village  with  wounded  sol- 
diers and  prisoners  of  war,  and  sent  into  Ger- 
many, and  who  for  many  days  cried  without  ceas- 
ing. Other  facts  are  of  a  more  humorous  nature, 
as  when  he  sketches  the  Germans  who,  on  Sun- 
day afternoons,  came  with  their  families,  pro- 
vided with  opera  glasses,  to  view  the  prisoners 
of  war  behind  the  barbed  wires  of  the  camp,  and 
who  laughed  at  the  kilted  Scotch,  or  were  hor- 
rified at  the  sight  of  the  native  IMoroccan  troops, 
and  shook  their  fists  at  the  French.  AYarnod 
was  in  Germany  for  nine  months;  most  of  the 
time  he  was  at  Merseburg,  Bavaria. 

Other  books  of  a  similar  kind  are  E.  Zavie's 
Prisonn'ier  en  Allemagne  (1917),  R.  de  la 
Fregeolieres,  A  Tire  d'Ailes,  Garnet  d'un 
Aviateur  et  Souvenirs  d'un  Prisonnier,  with  a 
preface  by  Bazin  (1917),  Abbe  Aubry's  Ma 
Captivite  en  Allemagne  (1917),  Albert  Thierry, 
Garnets  de  guerre  (1918),  R.  Christian-Froge, 
Les  Gaptifs  (1919),  Joseph  Hemard,  Ghez  les 
Fritz,  Notes  et  Groquis  (1919). 

One  of  these  diaries  has  attracted  a  good  deal 
of  attention  and  has  been  much  praised ;  it  is 
that  of  a  young  author  of  the  name  of  Gaston 
Riou,  who,  a  few  months  before  the  war,  had 
published  a  book  which  was  well  received  by  the 
203 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

French    reading    public:    Aux    Ecoutes    de    la 
France  qui  vient  (1913). 

Any  publication,  in  those  days  of  anxious  ex- 
pectation, which  spoke  of  the  spirit  of  confidence 
which  animated  the  French  youth,  was  wel- 
comed and  sure  to  be  eagerly  read.  Gaston 
Riou  was  in  the  Ambulance  service  when  the  war 
broke  out  and  was  soon  afterwards  made  a 
prisoner;  and,  in  spite  of  international  agree- 
ments with  regard  to  Red  Cross  workers,  was 
interned  in  Germany.  lie  was  there  nearly  a 
year  (until  July  31,  1915),  after  which  time  he 
was  allowed  to  return  to  France  through  Switzer- 
land. He  spent  the  eleven  months  of  his  cap- 
tivity in  the  fortress  of  Orff,  near  Ingolstadt,  in 
Bavaria.  It  was  there  that  he  wrote  his  Journal 
d'un  simple  Soldat;  Guerre,  Captivite,  1914- 
1915  (1916). 

On  the  whole,  his  lot  was  not  very  hard.  The 
prisoners  in  the  fortress  were  not  well  fed ;  they 
were  short  of  news,  and  were  often  subjected  to 
petty,  even  cruel,  vexations,  but  to  nothing  that 
was  really  unbearable.  It  must  be  remembered, 
however,  that  this  was  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  when  the  policy  of  the  Germans  was  to 
praise  France,  while  they  vented  their  wrath 
against  the  English  and  the  Belgians,  in  the  hope 
204 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

of  bringing  about  a  Franco-German  alliance. 
The  prisoners  who  returned  after  1915  had  a 
very  different  story  to  tell,  and  a  truer  account 
of  the  spirit  of  the  German  authorities  is  found 
in  books  such  as  Les  Martyrs  de  Lens.  Riou 
himself  knows  that  he  was  fortunate,  and  he 
repeatedly  states  that  the  prisoners  interned  at 
Orff  were  comparatively  well  off  (see  pp.  105- 
106).  Moreover,  they  had  the  good  fortune  of 
being  in  the  hands  of  a  humane  fort  commander, 
Baron  von  Stengel,  who,  when  the  hope  of  a 
reconciliation  with  France  had  to  be  abandoned, 
was  replaced  by  a  stern,  vain  and  exacting  man. 
This  change  was  made  only  a  short  time  before 
Riou  was  sent  back  to  France.  "What  con- 
tributed very  materially  to  Riou's  comfort  while 
in  the  fortress,  was  the  fact  that  he  was  appar- 
ently well  supplied  with  money;  and,  further- 
more, as  every  one  knew  that  he  was  a  writer, 
he  enjoyed  a  certain  prestige,  and*some  im- 
munity from  bad  treatment  for  fear  of  what  he 
might  publish. 

We  may  be  permitted  to  add  that  Riou  shows 
from  time  to  time  that  he  is  well  aware  of  his 
importance,  and  that  this  is  apt  to  take  away 
from  all  the  enjoyment  one  would  otherwise  find 
in  the  reading  of  his  book.  Moreover,  while  the 
205 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

facts  which  he  relates — his  descriptions  of  life 
in  the  fortress,  of  the  little  joys  and  great  dis- 
couragements of  the  prisoners,  of  his  reading, 
of  fraternizing  with  the  Russian  prisoners, — are 
interesting  and  to  the  point,  the  same  cannot  be 
said  of  the  grand  introduction  which,  by  con- 
trast, makes  the  book  itself  look  rather  thin. 
Why,  indeed,  should  he  tell  us  how,  during  his 
previous  travels  in  Germany,  he  had  been  re- 
ceived by  Herr  Banker  A "cousin  of  Chan- 
cellor von  Bethmann,"  by  the  "great  sociolo- 
gist" B ,  by  the  "famous  painter"  C ,  by 

"the  most  alert  man  he  ever  met"  D ,  by  the 

continuator   of   Kant   and   Fichte"   E ,   by 

the  "Director"  of  such  and  such  a  periodical, 
and    "leader    of    all   the   youth    of    Germany" 

F ,  by  the  "grand  master  of  German  artistic 

life"  G ,  by  the  "future  Bebel  of  Germany" 

H ,  by  M.  von  I "of  the  Prussian  gen- 
eral staff, ' '  and  ' '  by  the  most  influential  of  them 

all"  J etc.,  etc.,  all  of  whom  took  young 

Riou  into  their  confidence.  The  remainder  of 
the  book  has  no  earthly  connection  with  all  this, 
— which,  perhaps,  is  a  long  introduction  to 
some  other  book  which  has  not  appeared,  but 
certainly  not  to  this  plain  diary  of  a  prisoner. 
As  for  the  philosophical  remarks  in  that  intro- 
206 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

duction,  they  savor  really  a  little  too  much  of 
prophecies  after  the  events.  It  is  quite  remark- 
able how  many  men  in  Europe  have  thought  it 
interesting  to  tell  us, — at  dates  posterior  to 
August  1st,  1914 — that  they  knew  all  the  time 
what  was  coming;  and  somehow,  it  is  exasperat- 
ing to  think  that  they  all  knew  all  about  it,  and 
yet  did  nothing  to  avert  the  catastrophy.^" 
*         *         * 

A  much  more  genuine  work  is  that  of  Charles 
Hennebois,  Aux  mains  de  VAUemagne,  Journal 
d'lin  Grand  Blesse  (Aout  1914, — Juillet  1.915), 
with  a  preface  by  Ernest  Daudet  (1916),  The 
author  had  previously  published  two  little 
volumes  of  verse.  He  enlisted  voluntarily  at 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  was  severely  wounded 
at  St.  Mihiel  Aug.  12,  1914,  after  he  had  been 
only  six  days  at  the  front.  He  spent  nine 
months  in  various  hospitals  in  German}-.  He  is 
quite  impartial  in  his  appreciation;  although  an 
ardent  patriot,  he  readily  acknowledges  any  kind 
treatment  he  may  have  received,  but  he  also  has 
some  tales  to  relate  which  constitute  a  terrible 

"<^  Riou  has  also  written  an  essay — not  a  little  rhetor- 
ical— to  commemorate  the  landing  of  tlie  first  American 
troops  in  France  on  July  10,  1917.  It  borrows  its  title 
from  the  historic  word  of  an  American  ofBcer  at  La  Fay- 
ette's tomb:  La  Fayette,  nous  voild. 
207 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

indictment  of  Germany.  There  are  too  many 
such  reports  for  one  to  be  able  to  consider  acts 
of  barbarous  cruelty  as  exceptions  confirming 
the  rule;  even  if  we  do  not  regard  them  as  a 
matter  of  regular  practice,  the  fact  remains  that 
they  were  perpetrated  by  men  and  women  who 
were  reared  in  that  country,  and  one  feels  that 
those  acts  are  the  logical  result  of  a  revolting 
system  of  education. 

Hennebois  escaped  death  only  by  a  miracle 
when  lying  wounded  on  the  battlefield,  because 
he  happened  to  know  the  German  tongue ;  it  was 
while  lying  there  that  he  witnessed  the  "finish- 
ing off  by  Germans  with  the  butt  ends  of  rifles 
and  with  bayonets,  and  the  robbing  of  the  bodies 
of  some  French  wounded  who  had  called  for 
water. ' ' 

He  relates  the  revolting  conduct  of  two  Ger- 
man orderlies  in  the  hospital  where  he  was,  who, 
bringing  back  from  the  operating  table  a 
Frenchman  whose  leg  had  been  amputated,  and 
was  in  danger  of  hemorrhage,  "shook  the 
stretcher  roughly,  raced  like  lunatics  through 
the  passages, ' ' — and  although  the  patient  begged 
them  to  be  careful  "purposely  tossed  the  limp, 
mutilated  body  higher  still,  playing  with  it  as 
with  a  living,  suffering  ball. ' '  He  has  a  terrible 
208 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

suspicion,  amounting  almost  to  certainty,  that 
a  German  surgeon,  with  malice  prepense,  but 
under  the  pretext  of  a  new  operation,  made  in 
one  of  his  French  patients  a  much  larger  and 
deeper  wound  than  the  first.  Such  pages  must 
be  read  in  the  original,  and  we  therefore  refer 
the  reader  to  the  dates  in  early  December,  1914. 

But  there  is  one  page  w'hich  we  can  repro- 
duce.    A  certain  Doctor  "W disliked  Henne- 

bois,  and  this  is  the  mean  revenge  which  he  took 
because  he  had  been  foiled  in  an  attempt  to  harm 
the  wounded. 

"February  14,  1915. — I  am  in  the  dressing 
ward.     I   have   unrolled   my   bandage.     Doctor 

W looks  at   me  askance.     The  affair  of  a 

duck  and  of  some  bread  is  still  on  his  mind.  He 
is  still  very  angry.  A  German,  we  know,  takes 
fort3'-eight  hours  to  consider  a  problem.  My 
wound  is  almost  closed.  The  flesh  which  has 
shrunk  very  much  looks  healthy  and  red.  It 
has  ceased  to  suppurate. 

"The  doctor  motions  to  me.  I  climb  upon  the 
table.  lie  takes  his  forceps,  probes  the  wound, 
makes  it  bleed,  continues  ruthlessly.  At  inter- 
vals he  turns  to  me:  Well,  patriot,  does  it 
hurt? 

"I  shake  my  head,  and  the  operation  con- 
209 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tinues.  He  strikes  the  projecting  bone  with  his 
forceps.  The  pain  is  atrocious.  I  grip  the  sides 
of  the  table.  I  will  not  scream  and  I  feel  myself 
turning  pale.  He  repeats  his  question,  an  evil 
gleam  in  his  green  eyes. 

"Does  it  hurt?     No?     Not  yet? 

"I  shake  my  head  angrily. 

' '  Yes,  I  know,  the  French  are  very  courageous. 
But  let  us  see. 

"He  takes  the  flesh  in  both  hands,  and  brings 
the  two  edges  together.  Then  he  presses  with 
all  his  strength.  I  feel  a  cold  sweat  break  out 
over  me.  I  close  my  eyes  suddenly  to  avoid  see- 
ing the  man.  I  am  afraid  of  flinching,  of  giving 
way  and  howling  aloud.  The  pressure  con- 
tinues ;  the  scar  which  is  broad  at  the  edges, 
tears  presently.  The  blood  pours  over  the 
doctor's  hand.  He  looks  like  a  butcher.  And 
he  still  asks:  Does  it  hurt?  I  do  not  answer. 
I  feel  a  mad  desire  to  strike  at  that  narrow  fore- 
head, and  to  cry  aloud  the  words  that  are  on  my 
lips :  Coward !  Coward  !  Brute  !  But  I  keep 
silence.  I  raise  myself  with  a  supreme  effort, 
and  if  my  voice  trembles,  what  I  say  at  least, 
sounds  grave  and  simple: 

"A  Frenchman  can  bear  pain  when  it  is  neces- 
210 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

sary.  Was  this?  I  think  not,  monsieur.  But 
God  will  judge  you. 

"He  laughs  loud  and  long,  sends  for  a  glass 
and  pours  a  few  drops  into  it. 

"Drink  this  brandy.     You  have  been  brave. 

"I  refuse  to  drink,  gently  but  firmly.     And 

the  dressing  is  completed.     Doctor  K has 

arrived.  He  is  told  what  has  happened.  It 
amuses  him  very  much.  He  adds  his  contribu- 
tion: 

"Necessary  or  unnecessary,  that's  our  busi- 
ness. Anyhow,  the  Kr'iegsfreiwilliger  (volun- 
teer) will  remember  us,  and  that's  what  we 
want.  You  may  think  j^ourself  lucky  to  get 
off  so  cheaply.  One  leg  is  not  much.  If  it  had 
depended  on  me,  you  would  have  lost  both." 

How  can  the  Germans  challenge  the  epithet  of 
"barbarians"  which  has  so  often  been  applied 
to  them,  when  such  incidents  are  allowed  to  take 
place  in  their  hospitals?  Their  women  seem 
to  be  not  much  better  than  their  men.  For 
one  Sister  Amolda  (at  Offenburg),  there  are 
two  others,  a  Sister  Erigia  (at  San  Klemens) 
and  Frau  Kommando  (at  Offenburg),  who  are 
regular  she-devils.  It  is  easy  to  understand  the 
delirium  of  joy  of  the  liberated  prisoners  when 
211 


TRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

they  are  allowed  to  return  to  France ;  when  they 
come  to  the  border  and  get  at  last  into  Switzer- 
land where  such  a  touching  welcome  awaits  them, 
not  in  French  Switzerland  only,  but  in  German 
Switzerland  as  wellJ^ 

71  One  should  read  also  Captain  OUivier's  Onze  Mois  de 
Captivite  dans  les  Hopitaux  Allemands  (Chapelot,  1916). 
The  lively  entertaining  experiences  of  an  officer,  which 
do  not  difter  very  materially  from  the  experiences  of  a 
private.  This  is  another  case,  one  of  the  many  cases, 
when  the  life  of  a  wounded  man  was  spared — when  he 
was  not  brutally  butchered  while  lying  helpless  on  the 
battlefield — by  the  fact  that  he  knew  German.  He  re- 
ceived treatment  successively  at  Le  Chatelet,  Liege, 
Maience,  and  finally  returned  to  France  through  Frei- 
burg and  Constance.  He  relates  many  instances  of  the 
lack  of  decency  of  feeling  in  the  Germans;  their  tactless 
jokes  at  the  expense  of  prisoners  and  wounded;  their 
readiness  to  adopt  any  new  attitude  ordered  by  the  gov- 
ernment or  by  circumstances.  They  are  impervious  to 
any  feeling  of  shame  at  the  most  complete  volteface. 

Eugene-Louis  Blanchet,  En  Represailles  (1918)  must 
be  singled  out  because  it  tells  of  the  suffering  of  a  par- 
ticular class  of  prisoners,  those  undergoing  ill  treat- 
ment under  the  pretext  of  reprisals  for  bad  treatment 
of  German  prisoners.  The  volume  is  another  terrible  in- 
dictment of  the  Germans  less  because  of  their  lack  of 
kindly  feelings  (some  of  them  were  good  at  times),  than 
because  there  seems  to  be  nothing  in  them  that  revolts 
at  wickedness  and  cruelty  to  a  fellow-man.  Some  of  the 
pages  of  this  book,  couched  in  absolutely  moderate  terms, 
set  one's  blood  boiling.  Scenes  of  pitiless  clubbing  and 
bayoneting  are  everyday  occurrences;  but  when  it  comes 
to  pouring  boiling  water  on  prisoners,  or  to  tying  to  the 
post  the  poor  helpless  fellows,  one  feels  that  these  tor- 
mentors belong  to  a  race  whose  instincts  are  unknown  to 
the  rest  of  the  world.  If  German  prisoners  have  been 
treated  one  hundredth  as  badly,  we  will  hear  of  it  surely. 
Their  whining  is  too  well  known  to  let  us  believe  that 
212 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

We  shall  deal  with  one  more  book  in  closing 
this  part  of  our  study.  It  is  L'Allemand,  Sou- 
venirs et  Reflexions  d'un  Prisonnicr  de  Guerre 
(1919),  by  Jacques  Riviere,  Director  of  the 
Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise.  This  work  claims  to 
be  philosophical ;  i.  e.,  not  written  like  a  diary  in 
which  the  feelings  of  the  moment  are  always 
reflected,  but  after  the  author's  return  to 
France.  While  he  was  in  Germany,  he  had  ob- 
served,  and  he  had   read.     He  had  read   with 

they  would  boar  it  in  silcnco.  But  we  net'd  expect  noth- 
ing. And,  after  all,  why  should  we  he  surprised  when 
we  read  in  an  Anthology  of  German  thought  during  the 
war  (Der  Deutsche  Gedanhe,  1918)  such  passages  as  the 
following : 

'"Laugh  aloud,  0  my  Germany,  for  thy  noisy  enemies 
have  at  last  acknowledged  in  their  rage  that  thou  art 
the  true  successor  of  thy  forebears!  Does  not  thy  heart 
swell  with  pride  that  thou  canst  strike  at  leisure  with 
thy  sharp-edged  sword?  'Barbarian?  Present!'  Be 
sincere,  my  Germany,  thou  never  couldst  with  grace  put 
up  with  culture:  it  was  too  small  for  thee:  a  garment 
which  marred  thy  beauty.  Don  the  wolf-skin!  it  was 
thus  arrayed,  0  feldgrau  warrior,  that  thine  ancestor  of 
the  forests  and  the  marshes  went  out  to  meet  the  for- 
eign invader.  Barl^arian !  and  we  should  blush,  for- 
sooth, at  a  name  so  well-sounding,  so  ancient  and  so 
solemn!  8hall  we  protest  indeed?  .  .  .  Hail  to  the  day 
when  the  barbarian  manner  shall  cover  the  earth;  for 
in  that  day  the  air  shall  be  pure  as  the  breath  of  the 
forests,  and  the  lives  of  men  limpid  as  spring  waters. 

(Signed)      "Augustus  Supper." 
(Quoted  from  Vallotton's  Preface  to  Blanchet's  book.)  72 

'-  The  author  belongs  to  a  group  of  writers  who  do 
not  consider  the  Revolutions  of  17S9  and  1848  as  bless- 
ings for  France. 

213 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

special  care  a  study  of  the  German  soul  by  one 
of  the  most  broad-minded  of  Germans,  Pro- 
fessor Paul  Natorp  (the  only  professor  who,  so 
far  as  we  know,  dared  to  abstain  from  shouting 
with  the  Pan-Germanists,  and  even  after  the  out- 
break of  the  war,  dared  to  protest  against  their 
principles).  Riviere's  captivity  lasted  for  three 
years ;  and  he  tries  to  write  soberly.  He  is  often 
subtle  and  diffuse,  but  his  conclusions,  after 
three  years  of  pondering,  can  be  summarized  in 
a  few  words.  These  conclusions  are  of  much 
greater  value  than  Riou's. 

"I  make  bold  to  say,  and  to  repeat  without 
fear  of  being  mistaken:  The  German  is  a  bar- 
barian, not  perhaps  in  the  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  usually  understood;  but  in  so  far  as  he 
has  no  appreciation  of  what  is  excellent.  .  .  .  He 
is  a  barbarian  in  this  also,  that  he  does  not  see 
the  stability  of  excellence,  all  that  it  prevents, 
all  that  it  does  without,  the  impossibility  of  doing 
better.  The  German  is  a  barbarian  too,  by  the 
fact  that  he  knows  no  certainty,  no  absolute 
obligation.  He  can  explore  forever  his  own  soul, 
he  can  push  his  investigation  in  every  direction, 
in  no  direction  does  he  meet  with  any  resistance 
which  increases  as  he  advances;  everything,  to 
214 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

him,  is  possible,  nothing  is  really  stable ;  at  bot- 
tom the  reason  of  his  failure  to  recognize  the 
excellent  which  lies  outside  himself,  is  that  he 
has  none  of  it  within.  He  is  a  barbarian  in  this, 
that  his  intellect  is  in  a  state  of  perpetual  migra- 
tion. I  am  far  from  saying  that  he  is  not 
capable  of  many  things ;  I  have  even  said  that  he 
is  capable  of  everything.  ..."  Riviere  returns 
often  to  the  idea  of  the  German  who  does  not 
say  /,  but  can  only  say :     We  Germans.  .  .  . 

As  for  France:  "It  is  useless  to  try  to  con- 
ceal from  ourselves  the  fact  that  we  are  not  a 
progressive  people.  .  .  .  "We  must  put  up  with 
it.  We  shall  never  be  the  first  to  bring  about 
social  revolutions.  0  my  awlrvvard  France,  so 
very  far  behind  the  point  you  think  you  have 
attained  ...  so  dangerously  outstripped  by 
others.  0  my  threatened  France,  but  whom 
they  have  succored,  as  one  takes  the  arm  of 
some  dear  tired  friend,  I  love  thee  because  noth- 
ing can  make  thee  forget  what  must  not  be  for- 
gotten. L  love  thee  because  in  spite  of  all,  thou 
maintainest  contact  with  things  that  are  stable. 
Again,  I  love  thee  because  thou  doest  naught 
else,  perhaps,  than  prevent  or  punish  that 
mania  for  speed,  those  turns  on  two  wheels,  and 
215 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

I  love  thee  because  thou  dost  not  take  aboard  as 
ballast,  as  things  to  be  got  rid  of  if  need  be,  the 
sacred  certainties  of  the  mind. ' ' 

Before  leaving  this  subject  of  Prisoners  in  Ger- 
many, we  ought  to  mention,  though  we  cannot 
stop  to  analj^ze  them,  the  very  fascinating  stories 
of  the  marvelous  escapes  of  Du  Tartre  and 
Prieur,  as  told  by  D.  Baud-Bovy  (who  had  it 
directly  from  the  two  men),  in  L' Evasion,  Recit 
de  Deux  Prisonniers  Frangais  Evades  du  Camp 
d'Hammelhourg  (fin  1914).^=^  (1917),  and  of 
Lieutenant  Niod  as  related  in  Mes  six  Evasions 
(1919)  which  has  a  preface  by  Barres.  (See 
also  P.  Ginisty  et  Capt.  M.  Gagneur,  Les  Belles 

^vasions.)"^* 

*        #        # 

We  now  come  to  books  describing  the  effects 

''s  Du  Tartre  and  Prieur  also  speak  of  the  lieartless- 
ness  shown  by  German  Rod  Cross  women.  It  is  aston- 
ishin<r  how  frequently  references  to  that  .subject  are 
found  in  prisoners'  diaries. 

74  For  further  documentation  on  Germany  at  the  com- 
mencement of  the  war,  the  reader  may  consult  Le- Jour- 
nal d'une  Franraise  en  Allemagne  juiUet  a  octohre  IUI4, 
by  El.  Altiar  (1915)  ;  if  the  Irritating  je  occurred  less 
often  and  if  the  reader  felt  less  the  persistent,  and  very 
feminine  desire  to  make  "original"  remarks,  the  book 
would  afford  much  more  enjoyable  reading.  See  also 
Cecile  Fallet.  Notes  d'une  Internee  Frawjaise  en  Alle- 
magne  (1919). 

216 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

of  the  war  upon  the  population  away  from  the 
war  zone — on  the  French  side  of  the  battle  line. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  differentiate  here, 
as  we  have  done  elsewhere,  between  novels  and 
volumes  of  recollection.'^ 

Marcelle  Tinayre's  Veilk'e  des  Amies  has 
never  lost  its  popularity  since  its  publication  in 
1915.  The  reason  for  that  is  the  admirable 
blending  of  life  with  the  remarkable  art  of  that 
gifted  woman.  It  is  evident  that  she  saw  with 
her  keen  feminine  sense  of  observation  which 
never  fails  to  penetrate  deep  and  complex  psy- 
chic states,  the  thrilling  first  days  of  the  war 
in  Paris.  Her  studies  are  like  rapid  cinemato- 
graph scenes,  very  varied,  taking  the  reader  from 
the  street  to  the  house,  from  the  barracks  or  from 
the  factory  to  the  station ;  her  characters  are  now 
shopkeepers,  now  housewives,  lovers,  soldiers, 
officers,  old  men  or  young.  None  could,  better 
than  Marcelle  Tinayre,  amalgamate  so  well  the 
two  dominating  features  of  that  time :  the  dig- 

Ts  As  a  jreneral  introduction  to  this  subject  the  reader 
may  refer  to  Alphaud's  La  France  pendant  la  Cruerre, 
wh'icli  contains  a  great  deal  of  information;  Mad.  Marc 
Hclys's  Les  Provinces  pendant  la  duerre:  a  work  in  six 
volumes.  I.  Bretagne;  II.  Bordeaux.  Cognac,  le  Lot 
d' Argent,  le  Beam;  III.  Lyon,  St.  Eticnno,  Le  Puy;  IV. 
Dauphinc.  Provence;  V.  Poitou.  Limousin,  Languedoc; 
VI.  Normandie,  Bourgogue.  Reflets  de  la  Guerre. 
217 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

nity  and  self-control  of  the  people,  and  the 
genuine,  deep-felt  suffering.  Her  volume  is 
generally  regarded  as  a  novel. 

Jacques  Blanche's  Cahiers  d'un  Artiste 
(1916-and  ff)  were  first  published  in  the  Revue 
de  Paris.  Four  volumes  of  them  had  come 
out  before  the  end  of  the  war.  The  wide  cir- 
cle of  Blanche's  noted  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances both  in  France  and  in  England,  his 
traveling  both  before  and  since  1914,  added  to 
his  natural  gift  of  telling  his  storj-  simply  and 
yet  vividly  and  strikingly,  makes  this  diary  one 
of  the  most  remarkable  products  of  war  litera- 
ture, and  the  best  general  picture  of  France 
during  the  great  war. 

The  first  part.  Prodromes,  is  an  alarming  ac- 
count of  a  journey  to  the  German  eye-clinic 
of  Liebenstein,  in  June,  1914.  The  moment 
Blanche  had  crossed  the  frontier,  a  feeling  of 
uneasiness  pervaded  him.  He  was  greatly  sur- 
prised to  see  everywhere  gigantic  preparations 
for  a  struggle ;  soldiers,  formidable  warehouses, 
large  railroad  stations  often  in  small  villages; 
guests  in  hotels  were  inconvenienced,  even  con- 
fined to  their  rooms  when  manoeuvres  were  tak- 
ing place  in  the  neighborhood,  etc.  He  also 
found  sumptuous  comfort  everywhere,  wealth 
218 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

and  every  material  opportunity  of  enjoj'ing  life, 
— although  the  essential  condition  for  genuine 
enjoyment  of  life,  namely  "art,"  was  lacking. 
Such  was  Germany:  rapidly  making  money,  but 
embarrassed  when  it  came  to  making  use  of  it ; 
and  squandering  it  to  create  an  illusion.  .  .  . 
Germany  with  mediocre  natural  intelligence,  but 
making  up  for  this  shortcoming  by  the  artifices 
of  organization.  .  .  .  Germany,  ferociously  jeal- 
ous of  France,  where  the  people  with  much 
less  means,  and  less  spectacular  display,  be- 
tray a  real  sense  for  life.  Blanche  looked  in 
vain  for  the  simple,  dreamy  Germany  of  Renan ; 
"Thej"  keep  their  people  in  a  state  of  exaltation, 
heroic  and  religious"  .  .  .  "Germany  aston- 
ishes me  to  the  point  of  compelling  mj-  ad- 
miration for  her  unbelievable  progress  and  her 
total  transformation.  There  were  minutes  dur- 
ing my  short  stay  when  I  forgot  the  enemy  hid- 
ing so  cleverly.  But,  no !  Impossible  to  feel 
at  home  here." 

Then  after  his  return,  he  witnessed  in  France 
the  moving  days  of  the  mobilization.  During 
the  next  months,  he  lived  part  of  the  time  at  his 
country  house  in  Normandy,  part  of  the  time  in 
Paris;  he  visited  also  other  parts  of  France. 
Everywhere  he  notes  the  "galvanizing  of  the 
219 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

country  by  the  war  " ;  he  sees  how  all  are  anxious 
to  do  their  share,  eager  especially  to  go  to  the 
front ;  he  also  witnesses  how  the  treasures  of  the 
Louvre  are  put  in  safety ;  he  has  visions  of  many 
soldiers  in  the  first  weeks,  coming  home  insane 
from  the  hell  they  went  through.  He  is  rather 
a  pessimist  in  1915,  and  expresses  his  belief  in  a 
long  war;  but  much  as  he  hates  stupid  op- 
timism, he  admires  the  continued  heroism  of  the 
French  people^'' 

In  1916  a  small  volume  was  published  which 
met  with  a  hearty  reception  and  ran  quickly  into 

many   editions.     La   Guerre,  Madame  by 

Geraldy.  What  is  this  book  with  so  strange  a 
title  ?  A  soldier  on  furlough  comes  home.  War 
has  made  a  new  man  of  him,  but  he  is  curious  to 
see  what  has  become  of  Paris  during  his  absence. 
He  finds  that  the  most  complete  misapprehen- 
sions concerning  the  meaning  of  war  exist  in  the 
capital.  Especially  is  that  so  among  the  so- 
called  upper  classes,  which  seem  to  have  re- 
mained untouched,  and  to  look  upon  the  war 
rather  as  a  somewhat  annoying  episode  of  life 
in  otherwise  normal  times.     Our  soldier  is   at 

'6  If  one  wants  to  see  how  a  woman  does  the  same  kind 
of  work  one  may  read  Baronne  J.  Michaux  En  Marge  du 
drame.  Journal  d'une  Parisienne  pendant  la  guerre. 
(Several  series.) 

220 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

first  disconcerted,  but  he  is  too  proud  and  too 
intelligent  to  betray  his  feelings;  he  therefore 
plays  the  part  of  his  former  self,  the  part  of 
the  half-snob  of  Parisian  upper  circles ;  and 
when  asked  by  his  lady-friend  what  war  really 
is,  he  is  very  careful  not  to  attempt  to  explain 
to  her  what  she  is  utterly  incapable  of  under- 
standing. *'La  Guerre,  Madame  ,"  the  in- 
complete title  excellently  suggests  tlie  men- 
tality of  Geraldy's  soldier.     Taking  it  all  in  all. 

La   Guerre,   Madame  is  a  sister   book  to 

Le  Feu;  but  where  Barbusse  adopts  the  tragic 
tone,  Geraldy  prefers  to  use  subtle  irom'.  It 
is  more  elegant,  just  as  effective,  and  does  not 
prove  that  Geraldy  suffered  any  less  than 
Barbusse. 

The  opportunitj'  seems  favorable  here  to  men- 
tion Gyp's  w^ar-time  books.  They  are  half  fact 
and  half  fiction.  In  her  inimitable  Gavroche 
style,  she  lashes  without  mercy  those  in  the 
rear:  "Ceux  de  la  Nuque"  as  she  calls  them, 
who  seem  to  resent  the  interference  of  the  war 
with  their  petty  little  habits.  What  saves  the 
situation  in  Ceux  de  la  Nuque  as  well  as  in  her 
other  books  like  Les  Flanchards  and  Le  Journal 
d'un  cochon  de  pessimist c,  is  that  her  stinging 
sarcasm  has  its  source  in  righteous  indignation, 
221 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

at  the  shameless  injustice  which  she  sees  being 
done  to  the  magnificent  soldiers  of  France. 

The  same  is  true  of  Colette  Yver's  Mysteres 
des  Beatitudes,  in  which,  however,  the  author 
adds  to  her  censuring  of  the  "unworthy  rich," 
descriptions  of  the  blessings  which  come  to  those 
whose  modest  lives  are  rendered  terribly  difficult 
by  war  conditions,  but  who  feel  the  moral  uplift 
of  those  who  willingly  sacrifice  themselves  to  the 
great  cause. 

The  same  cannot  be  said  of  a  sort  of  diary  of 
a  Parisian  woman,  written  by  her  "cousin"  (the 
author)  who  sees  her  almost  daily.  We  refer  to 
Marcel  Boulenger's  Charlotte  en  Guerre,  Le 
Front  de  Paris  (1918).  It  is  most  entertaining; 
we  would  even  say — at  the  risk  of  being  regarded 
as  chagrin — it  is  too  entertaining.  La  Guerre,  Ma- 
dame   only  seems  to  be  detached ;  the  author 

really  wishes  us  to  understand  that  there  is  a 
deep  and  gloomy  abyss  between  himself  and  the 
lady;  he  wants  us  to  realize  that  he  only  pre- 
tends not  to  care.  Boulenger,  on  the  other 
hand,  does  not,  for  a  moment,  give  one  the  im- 
pression that  he  does  care.  Charlotte  really 
amuses  him,  and  he  wants  to  be  amused.  But 
in  the  midst  of  the  awful  tragedy,  is  so  much 
flippancy  (for  it  is  flippancy  and  not  healthy 
222 


PERIOD  OF  DOCU^rENTATIOK 

cheerfulness),  is  so  much  flippancy  beautiful?  is 
it  dignified?  is  it  even  proper  to  write  a  book 
about  it? 

It  will  be  a  relief  to  pass  from  such  a  book  as 
Charlotte  en  Guerre,  to  Le  Cran,  by  Paul  Patte 
(1917),  with  its  characters  so  different  from 
Boulenger's,  and  its  entirely  different  spirit.  It 
is  a  delightful  work.  It  is  chiefly  composed  of 
episodes  collected  and  recounted  by  a  public  of- 
ficer during  the  war,  Captain  Paul  Patte.  He 
was  made  a  kind  of  overseer  of  those  who  needed 
help,  and  who  needed  it  as  a  direct  consequence 
of  the  war,  because  of  the  loss  or  absence  of  the 
breadwinner;  but  his  duties  brought  him  into 
contact  with  a  great  number  of  other  people. 
No  one  has  had  better  opportunities  than  Cap- 
tain Patte  to  observe  how  the  people  of  France 
stood  the  test  of  the  war ;  people,  we  mean,  who, 
owing  to  their  low  station  in  life,  were  the  most 
severely  tried.  And  what  he  saw  was  trul}-  mag- 
nificent. He  had  only  to  write  down  what  he 
had  seen,  as  he  tells  us  on  the  second  title  page 
of  the  book : 

Vidi,  audii,  scripsi. 

His  heroes  were  men  who,  being  dismissed  from 

the  army,  still  glowed  with  a  desire  to  serve; 

223 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

women  who  faced  the  most  indescribable  strokes 
of  ill  luck,  with  a  courage,  an  energy  and  a  re- 
sourcefulness that  fill  one  with  reverent  admira- 
tion; mere  children  who  rise  to  occasions  with  a 
simplicity  and  a  heroism  that  brings  tears  of 
admiration  to  one's  eyes.  One  thought  that  the 
whole  tale  of  noble  deeds  had  been  told,  but  ,one 
finds  here  things  more  beautiful  than  one  had 
dreamed  of.  Nothing  has  revealed  better  than 
these  few  pages,  the  whole  soul  of  the  French 
people  during  the  trying  years  that  followed 
August  1,  1914.  One  laughs,  one  weeps,  one 
grows  enthusiastic,  one  wonders  that  so  much 
kindness,  so  much  dignity,  so  much  beautiful 
pride,  can  contain  within  the  narrow  limits  of 
human  nature. 

The  title  of  the  book  is  admirably  chosen. 
Avoir  dii  cran  is  synonymous  with  another  collo- 
quial expression,  avoir  dii  panache.  We  would 
say  that  Rostand's  Cyrano  has  "du  panache." 
Panache,  however,  is  more  particularly  applied 
to  soldiers.  Cran  may  belong  to  the  civilian  as 
well.  It  is  courage,  initiative  and  endurance — 
and  something  more.  Frederic  Masson,  the 
Academician,  who  contributes  an  epilogue  to  the 
book,  defines  cran  as  follows:  ''Avoir  du  cran, 
e'est  ne  pas  s'epater,  ne  pas  vouloir  epater  les 
224 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

autres,  et  faire  tout  de  meme  quelque  chose 
d'epatant.  Cela  s 'oppose  a  ee  qu'on  nomine 
bourrer  les  cranes,"  which  we  may  venture  to 
translate:  not  to  be  staggered,  not  to  want  to 
stagger  others,  and  yet  to  do  staggering  things; 
it  is  the  contrary  of  what  one  calls  bluff.'" 
*         *         * 

"We  shall  bring  this  chapter  to  a  close  with  a 
description  of  Ungues  Le  Roux's  Mort  au  Champ 
d'Honneur  (1917). 

It  is  the  diary  of  a  father  who  had  suffered 
cruelly  already  in  his  affections  during  the  war. 
Now  his  son,  an  officer,  was  wounded,  and  he 
obtained  permission  to  visit  him  in  hospital. 
But  it  became  evident  that  the  young  man  must 
die.  AVishing  to  give  his  bo}^  a  decent  burial, 
the  father  succeeded,  though  not  without  great 
difficulty  and  the  exercise  of  much  ingenuity,  in 
getting  a  coffin  which  he  was  obliged  to  keep  in 
his  own  bed  room  until  the  time  when  it  w^ould 
be  required.  How  greatly  must  that  father  have 
suffered !  And  yet,  for  the  sake  of  France  he 
was  able  to  bear  it^  for  it  was  the  beloved  country 
which  had  demanded  the  life  of  the  beloved  son, 

77  Two  books  of  the  same  character  as  Le  Cran  are 
Maurice  Talmayre's  Portraits  de  la  Belle  France  (1919), 
and  Marguerite  Henry-Rosier's  Le  Chagrin  sous  les 
Vieux  Toils   (1919). 

225 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  he  was  not  insensible  to  the  honor  which 
such  a  demand  bestowed.  Before  closing  the 
coffin  above  the  remains  of  his  soldier-son,  he 
was  able  to  pin  to  his  breast  the  decoration  which 
had  been  so  well  earned  on  the  field  of  honor 
and  which  had  just  been  received. 

There  are  in  that  book  passages  of  the  most 
poignant  pathos.  Some  critics  will  no  doubt 
feel  that  such  griefs  are  too  personal  to  be  set 
down  in  writing  and  exposed  to  the  public ;  that 
it  would  have  been  better  to  refer  to  them  im- 
personally; to  keep  at  least  a  thin  veil  between 
the  private  sorrow  of  the  father  and  the  tragedy 
which  all  the  world  might  have  known  as  one  of 
the  episodes  of  those  dramatic  years  between 
1914  and  1918.  The  famous  sonnet  by  Leconte 
de  Lisle, 

Non,  je  ne  danserai  pas  .  .  . 

comes  to  one's  mind  as  one  reads  the  harrowing 
experiences  of  that  father's  soul.  And  yet  that 
criticism  would  not  be  altogether  fair.  Those 
were  no  ordinary  times,  and  they  called  for,  and 
justified,  extraordinary  styles.  Had  the  father, 
out  of  respect  for  tradition,  written  imperson- 
ally, the  truth  would  have  transpired  neverthe- 
less, and  the  generous  critic  would  have  pro- 
226 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

tested:  Why  conceal  the  faet  that  that  great 
grief  is  yours?  The  griefs  of  every  one  of  us 
are  those  of  all  France;  why  ask  for  our  sj-m- 
pathy  thus  indirectly?  Tell  us  frankly  what 
you  have  suffered,  we  will  share  your  sorrow 
as  you  have  shared  ours! 

*         *         * 

We  have  not,  of  course,  exhausted  the  list. 
We  must,  however,  press  on  rapidly,  and  for  the 
following  we  can  scarcely  do  more  than  mention 
the  titles:  Maurice  Donnay's  Lettres  a  tine  Dame 
Blanche  (1917)  is  full  of  irresistible  charm.  The 
letters  are  addressed  to  a  friend  of  the  famous 
Academician,  a  nurse  in  a  military  hospital  in 
Brittany.  He  gives  her  news  of  Paris,  of  the 
war,  of  the  theater,  art,  etc.,  and  relates  the  gos- 
sip of  the  capital,  much  in  the  same  manner  as 
Madame  de  Sevigne  pictured  the  capital  of  Louis 
XIV  in  her  immortal  letters  to  her  daughter. 

Another  small  volume  is  Tristan  Bernard's  Le 
Poil  Civil,  Gazette  d'un  immohilise  pendant  la 
Guerre  (1917).  Bernard  shares  with  Courteline 
the  honor  of  being  regarded  as  the  foremost  hu- 
morist of  France.  The  title  of  the  book  is  a  verj' 
good  indication  of  its  general  tone,  but  in  his 
ironical  descriptions  of  France  at  the  rear  of  the 
firing  line,  Bernard  is  never  very  cruel.  He  is 
227 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

one  of  those  men  who  refuse  to  believe  in  human 
wickedness  (at  least  in  France)  ;  he  sees  only 
human  weakness,  and  his  kindliness  has  re- 
doubled since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

J.  Adalbert's  collected  articles,  published  in 
1918  under  the  title  Dans  Paris  la  Grand'Ville, 
are  lively  and  entertaining. 

One  may  read  also  M.  Arguibert,  Journal 
d'une  Famille  'pendant  la  Guerre,  published  by 
Perrin,  1916.  It  describes  an  excellent  type  of 
French  famil}'. 

There  are  many  other  domains  of  life,  too 
special  to  allow  of  treatment  here,  which  have 
been  referred  to  in  war  literature.  We  may 
just  mention  L'Institut  et  la  Guerre  by  P.  Lamy, 
Secretaire  Perpetuel  (died  1918)  of  the  French 
Academy;  L'Universite  et  la  Guerre  (1919),  by 
R,  Thamin,  Rector  of  the  University  of  Bor- 
deaux; and  L'Institut eiLr  et  la  Guerre,  by  Lapie. 
There  is  the  expected  indiscreet  number  of  books 
about  women,  some  good,  some  less  so :  IMarcel 
Benoit,  L'Energie  feminine  pendant  la  Guerre 
(1916),  Abensour,  Les  Yaillantes,  Heroines,  Mar- 
tyres  et  Remplacantes  (1917).  IMarie  La  Hire's 
La  F^mme  Francaise  et  son  Activite  pendant  la 
Guerre  (1917),  which  describes  in  too  many 
words  actions  w^hich  every  sensible  person  would 
228 


PERIOD  OF  DOCUMENTATION 

praise  if  he  were  not  told  so  lengthily  to  do  so; 
Souvenirs  de  Parisiennes  en  temps  de  Guerre, 
recucilUs  par  C.  Clermont,  which  is  just  what  one 
might  expect  from  the  title;  La  Parisienne  et  la 
Guerre,  a  lecture  by  Maurice  Donnay  is  excus- 
able because  it  is  so  dainty:  she  is  the  "soldier 
of  the  science  that  heals,  fighting  against  the  sci- 
ence that  destroys."  War  literature  would,  of 
course,  never  be  complete  without  Jules  Comba- 
rieu's  La  Jeune  Fille  Frangaise  et  la  Guerre,  sea- 
soned with  the  delicate  emotion  pertaining  to  the 
title ;  and  finally,  referring  to  all  French  women, 
young  and  old,  provincial  and  Parisian,  rich  and 
poor,  is  Henriette  de  Visme's  Histoire  Authen- 
tique  et  Touchante  des  Marraines  et  des  Filleuls 
de  Guerre  (296  pp.)-  The  book  is  much  better 
than  the  sentimental  title  might  lead  one  to  ex- 
pect. 


CHAPTER  III 

PERIOD    OF    PHILOSOPHICAL    AND    POLITICAL 
CONSIDERATIONS  SUGGESTED  BY  THE  WAR 
(MORE   ESPECIALLY   SINCE   THE   BEGIN- 
NING OF  1917) 

I,  The  Forerunners 

It  will  be  well  to  remind  the  reader  at  this 
stage  that  our  division  of  war  literature  into 
three  periods,  each  having  its  predominant  char- 
acter (patriotic  lyricism,  documentation,  and 
philosophical  considerations),  was  meant  as  a 
rough  classification  for  convenience  in  handling, 
and  in  no  way  implies  that  the  periods  suc- 
ceeded each  other  without  overlapping. 

There  has  been  since  1917,  a  marked  tendency 
to  examine  systematically  and  dispassionately 
the  ethical,  social,  and  political  problems  now 
confronting  the  world  and,  more  especially, 
France. 

But  a  study  of  the  philosophical  works  dealing 
with  the  world  crisis  would  be  very  incomplete 
and  inadequate  without  an  introductory  brief 
survey  of  earlier  efforts  in  that  direction.  In- 
deed, some  most  striking  pronouncements  were 
230 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

made  not  only  prior  to  1917,  but  prior  to  the  war 
itself,  and  often  by  many  years.  And  some  of 
the  authors  whose  views  have  attracted  public 
attention  since  1917, — because  the  public  is  now 
better  able  to  appreciate  them, — not  only  held 
the  same  views  which  they  now  do,  but  had  al- 
ready expressed  them  in  various  publications 
long  before  that  date. 

Let  us  first  recall  one  of  the  earliest  of  those 
prophets:  Edgar  Quiuet,  who  died  in  1875. 
That  remarkable  seer,  nearly  a  hundred  years 
ago,  i.  e.,  in  the  thirties  and  forties  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  had  warned  his  countrymen  in 
unmistakable  terms  of  the  impending  evil  which 
came  to  a  head  in  1914.  Quinet's  writing  had 
sunk  into  oblivion ;  but  he  has,  at  last,  come  to 
his  own  through  a  book  in  which  the  author 
quotes  the  most  striking  of  his  prophetic  utter- 
ances: Paul  Gaultier,  Edgar  Quinet,  edition 
nouvelle  de  ses  articles  sur  I'Allemagne,  d'apres 
Us  textes  originaux  (1917).  Like  all  his  con- 
temporaries (they  were  the  generation  of  Ro- 
manticism), Quinet  had  allowed  himself  to  be 
lured  into  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  a  senti- 
mental Germany.  That  belief,  added  to  the  in- 
fluence of  Rousseau's  eighteenth  centurj'  senti- 
mentalism,  formed  a  background  for  the  theo- 
231 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ries  of  "Young  France."  But  Quinet,  anxious 
to  see  that  land  of  his  dreams,  and  filled  with  the 
highest  expectations,  went  on  a  kind  of  pilgrim- 
age to  Germany.  He  soon  discovered  that  the 
land  of  deep  and  gentle  idealism  was  a  mere 
fiction;  a  fantastic  creation  of  the  French  poets 
who  had  conjured  up  on  the  other  side  of  the 
Rhine,  a  Utopian  dream-country,  just  as,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  Fenelon  had  placed  the 
land  of  his  political  and  social  Utopia  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Pyrenees.  Quinet  felt  it  to 
be  his  sacred  duty  to  warn  France  of  a  Teutonic 
peril.  What  we  now  call  "Pan-Germanism,"  he 
called  "Teutomania."  His  article  in  the  Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes  (1842),  will  remain  a  classic. 
It  might,  if  a  few  names  were  changed,  be  taken 
for  the  work  of  a  thinker  of  to-day.  So  clear,  so 
definite  was  his  vision  of  the  future,  that  an  ir- 
resistible conviction  forced  itself  upon  him  that 
the  German  who  would  be  called  to  found  and  to 
organize  Teutonism,  must  already  be  born.  As 
early  as  1832  he  had  proclaimed  his  advent: 
"Un  homme  va  sortir  de  la  Prusse.  ..."  His 
friend  jNIichelet,  who  published  the  article  in 
which  those  words  occur,  was  reluctant  to  print 
so  positive  an  assertion  over  the  name  of  a  man 
who  claimed  to  be  an  historian,  and  not  a  vision- 
232 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

ary,  and  therefore  suppressed  it.  Nevertheless, 
Quillet  had  written  it  and  Bismarck,  though  un- 
known as  yet  to  the  world,  was  living;  he  was 
at  that  time  studying  at  the  University  of 
■  Gottingen. 

*         *         * 

But  the  ease  of  Quinet  is  so  extraordinary  that 
one  may  regard  it  as  a  kind  of  literary  curiosum. 
At  any  rate,  it  did  not  prevent  such  strong  minds 
as  those  of  Taiiie  and  Renan, — to  say  nothing  of 
Victor  Hugo, — from  heeding,  thirty  years  later, 
the  siren  call  of  the  Lorelei,  the  symbolic  woman 
of  the  high  rock  on  the  Rhine. 

The  place  of  honor  among  the  forerunners  of 
the  philosophers  of  the  Great  War  belongs  to 
Maurice  Barres,  His  warning  was  at  least  par- 
tially heeded.  His  series  of  novels:  Romans  de 
I'Energie  Nationale  (Les  Deracines  1898,  L'Ap- 
pel  du  Soldat  1900,  Leiirs  Figures,  1902)  are  in- 
tensely interesting  to  re-read  to-da}^,  and  they 
fill  one  with  admiration  for  the  perspicacity  of 
the  author.  The  first  volumes  tell  the  story  of 
that  spectacular  episode  in  French  politics 
knoM'ii  as  "Boiilangisme. "  Barres  was  keen 
enough  to  see  that  behind  "Boulangisme, "  as 
also  behind  the  later  Dreyfus  affair,  there  was  a 
deep  national  movement :  a  spontaneous  attempt 
233 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

on  the  part  of  the  French  people  to  unite  in  view 
of  a  menace  which  one  vaguely  felt  to  be  rising 
on  the  eastern  border ;  for,  the  colonial  policy  of 
France  was  at  that  time  arousing  the  displeasure 
of  Germany  who  did  not  conceal  her  feelings. 
Barres's  Preface  to  L'Appel  du  Soldat  has,  in 
reference  to  ' '  Boulangisme  " :  ' '  It  was  a  build- 
ing which  was  rising  of  its  own  accord  and  which 
the  unfriendly  spirit  of  a  political  party  tore 
down  at  a  time  when  the  scaffolding  still  con- 
cealed from  view  the  general  outline.  .  .  .  Bou- 
langisme must  be  regarded  as  a  series  of  efforts 
which  the  nation  had  made  to  resume  its  normal 
course  after  being  thrown  out  of  it  by  intrigues 
from  abroad."  In  1905,  Barres  published  his 
pathetic  Au  Service  de  VAllemagne:  the  experi- 
ences of  a  young  Lorrainer  who  had  to  undergo 
what  to  his  French  heart  was  a  terrible  ordeal, 
viz.,  initiation  into  the  methods  of  the  German 
army,  because  he  would  not,  by  a  refusal  to  serve 
and  by  desertion  to  France,  give  to  some  German 
the  opportunity  of  taking  his  place  on  the  sacred 

soil  of  Lorraine. 

*         * 

The  second  place  belongs  to  Charles  Peguy, 
that  quaint  and  fiery  apostle  of  a  ''mystic"  faith 
in  the  destiny  of  France,  who,   from  1900  to 
234 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

1914,  delivered  his  message  to  the  younger  gen- 
eration of  intellectuals  in  his  Cahiers  de  la  Quin- 
zaine.  After  Barres,  Peguy  had  entreated  the 
intellectual  elite  of  France,  for  the  sake  of 
France's  salvation,  to  cease  from  their  selfish 
enjoyment  of  purely  aesthetic  ideas  and  other 
vain  fancies  of  the  imagination,  and  to  rouse 
themselves  from  their  listless  indifference  to  pol- 
itics. When,  in  1905,  the  King  of  Spain  visited 
Paris,  and  an  attempt  was  made  upon  his  life, 
the  incident  called  forth  from  Peguy  that  long 
article  in  the  now  famous  Cahier:  Notre  Pa- 
trie}  On  the  morning  of  that  day  which  was 
to  have  been  one  of  rejoicing,  Peguy  understood 
more  clearly  than  ever  before  how  dangerous 
were  the  theories  of  the  internationalists,  and  he 
understood  at  the  same  time  the  intention  of 
Germany  to  force  a  war  upon  France,  "Like 
every  one  else,"  he  writes  in  reference  to  that 
memorable  day,  ' '  I  reached  Paris  at  nine  o  'clock 
in  the  morning;  like  every  one  else,  or  at  least 
like  some  eight  or  nine  hundred  other  people,  I 
realized  by  half  past  eleven  that  a  new  epoch 
had  begun  in  the  history  of  my  own  life,  in  the 

1  That  article,  as  the  title  indicates,  and  as  we  have 

already  said  in  Chapter  T,  was  an  answer  to  G.  Herve's 

anti-militarist    and    anti-patriotic    Lenr    Patrie.     Xotrs 

Patrie  has  been  reprinted  since  the  beginning  of  the  war. 

235 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

history  of  my  country,  and,  indeed,  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world.  Every  one  realized  at  that 
moment  that  the  menace  of  a  German  invasion 
was  imminent,  was  upon  us,  was  there." 

A  group  of  young  men  who  had  worked  under 
the  influence  of  Peguy,  founded  in  1909  La 
NouveUe  Revue  Frangaise,  a  literary  and  polit- 
ical revue  which  bore  to  the  purely  political  Ac- 
tion Frangaise  (which  we  mention  below),  the 
same  relation  as  the  Conservateur  Litteraire  of 
Hugo,  Vigny,  Deschamps,  etc.,  had  borne  to  Cha- 
teaubriand's political  Conservateur  about  a  cen- 
tury earlier. - 

*         *         # 

There  are  two  other  writers  who,  though  not 
such  litterateurs  as  Barres  and  Peguy,  ought  not 
to  be  omitted  from  a  broad  survey  such  as  this 
one. 

The  first  is  Leon  Daudet.  He  belongs  to  the 
group  of  the  Action  Frangaise,  a  paper  founded 
in  1899  by  Henri  Langlois,  and  characterized  by 
violent   anti-republican,  anti-Semitic,   anti-prot- 

2  Peguy  met  with  a  glorious  death  on  the  field  of 
honor,  Sept.  6th,  1914  (see  V.  Boudon's  Arec  Charles 
Peguy  de  la  Lorraine  d  la  Marne  Aoiit-Sept.  1914 
(1916).  On  the  political  significance  of  Peguy's  work, 
consult  Andr6  Suares,  Peqvy  (Emile-Paul,  1915). 
'  236 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

estant  and  anti-masonic  sentiments,  wliich  some- 
times led  its  editors  to  advocate  with  almost  rev- 
olutionaiy  fervor  a  return  to  what  they  called 
"nationalisme  integral" — by  which  they  meant 
the  old  regime  of  King  and  Church. 

On  September  11th,  1911,  Daudet,  who  was  at 
that  time  associated  with  Maurras,  began  in  the 
columns  of  the  Action  Frangaise,  a  campaign  of 
revelations  of  the  German  spy  system,  which  he 
continued  with  unabated  vigor  and  bitterness 
until  some  time  after  the  war  had  begun.  In 
March,  1913,  he  published  the  substance  of  those 
articles  in  his  L'Avant-Guerre,  Etudes  sur  I'Es- 
pionage  juif-allcmand  depuis  I'Ajfaire  Dreyfus. 
The  title  of  the  book  is  sufficient  to  explain  why 
the  public  at  large,  and  the  government  in  par- 
ticular, paid  little  attention  to  his  warnings. 
The  passionate  denunciations  of  the  government 
and  of  the  Jews,  which  accompany  Daudet 's  rev- 
elations, led  to  the  general  belief  that  his  spy 
stories  were  invented  to  create  difficulties  for 
the  government.  And  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  it  u'ds  his  desire  to  embarrass  the  govern- 
ment, but  his  facts  were  nevertheless  true,  as 
every  one  has  come  to  recognize.  Since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war,  Daudet  has  again  returned 
237 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  the  subject  in  his  Hors  du  Joug  Allemand, 
Mesures  d'Apres-guerre  (1915),  the  second  part 
of  which  is  particularly  interesting.^ 
*  *  * 
The  other  name  is  that  of  Andre  Cheradame, 
who  as  early  as  1901  had  published  his  L'Eu- 
rope  et  la  Question  d'Autriche  au  SeiM  du 
Vingtieme  Siecle,  which  was  followed,  in  1903, 
by  Le  Chemin  de  Fer  de  Bagdad.  But  Chera- 
dame also  failed  to  obtain  a  serious  hearing. 
Since  August,  1914,  however,  a  tragic  interest 
attached  to  his  warnings,  and  he  has  since  been 
regarded  as  one  of  the  most  eminent  writers  of 
the  day.  In  1915,  he  summarized  his  earlier 
writings  and  re-issued  them  with  a  warning 
against  the  dangers  of  a  premature  peace,  under 
the  title  of  Le  Pan-Germanisme  demasque,  le 
redovtahle  Piege  de  la  Partie-Nulle  (1915). 
The  book  has  been  widely  read  as  it  deserved  to 
be.  Cheradame  urged  upon  those  who  were 
anxious  for  a  premature  peace,  the  necessity  of 
a  clear  understanding  of  the  situation.  He 
noted  that  the  attention  of  most  people  was  fo- 
cussed  on  the  western  front,  where,  it  would 

3  See   also   Louis   Briineau's   L'Allemagne   en   France, 
(Plon,  1913).     Bruneau  does  not  deal  so  much  \yith  the 
German  spy  system  as  with  the  peaceful  economic  pene- 
tration of  France  by  Germany  before  the  war. 
238 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

seem,  the  issue  of  the  armed  conflict  would  have 
to  be  decided ;  but  he  reminded  his  readers  that 
if  the  military  leaders  of  Germany  were  looking 
westward,  the  eyes  of  her  politicians  had  always 
been  turned  toward  the  East.  A  German  Em- 
pire graduall}'  extending  from  the  shores  of  the 
Baltic  to  those  of  the  Persian  Gulf,  cutting  off 
Latin  Europe  from  communication  with  Russia 
and  overflowing  into  Africa,  would  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  make  any  demand  it  chose  upon  the  rest 
of  the  Old  World,  which  would  then  be  pow- 
erless to  offer  any  kind  of  effective  resistance. 
Cheradame's  charts  have  an  eloquence  of  their 
own  which  carries  conviction. 

II,  Intellectualism  versus  Intuitionism 

After  the  first  emotions  which  the  outbreak  of 
the  war  had  stirred,  had  somewhat  subsided,  and 
when  a  comparative  calm  seemed  to  justify  the 
resumption  of  philosophizing,  the  most  striking 
feature  of  the  writings  of  those  who  felt  entitled 
to  speak  for  the  generation  of  reconstruction  was 
an  unequivocal  med  culpa.  There  was  no  theat- 
rical pose  in  it ;  no  appeal  to  the  gallery ;  no  at- 
tempt to  obtain  an  easy  absolution  by  an  easier 
confession.  No,  the  sincerity,  the  earnestness  of 
those  men  was  unmistakable.  They  said  not 
239 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

merely:  "We  have  allowed  ourselves  to  be  led 
astray";  they  added  emphatically:  "It  must 
never  occur  again ! "  ^ 

4  An  exception  ought  to  be  made  here  for  the  two  vol- 
umes of  Dr.  G.  Le  Bon,  La  Guerre  Europeenne  et  ses 
Enseignements  psychologiqiies,  and  Premieres  Conse- 
quences de  la  Guerre,  Transformation  mentale  des  Peu- 
ples  (1916).  Certainly  Le  Bon  has  a  right,  if  any  one 
has,  to  philosophize  upon  the  Great  War,  for  his  whole 
career  as  a  writer  has  been  devoted  to  the  study  of  mob- 
psychology  in  works  which  have  won  him  universal  fame. 
(Lois  psychologiques  de  VEvolution  des  Peuples,  Psy- 
chologie  des  loonies,  La  Revolution  Frayi^aise  et  la  Psy- 
chologic des  Revolutions,  etc.)  But  the  psychological 
method  of  Le  Bon  is  still  that  of  Taine;  he  is  a  con- 
vinced determinist ;  he  does  not  allow  human  will  any 
part  in  the  framincf  of  history.  The  Kaiser,  for  in- 
stance, interests  him  very  little:  "Events  of  such  for- 
midable importance  could  not  possibly  depend  on  the 
will  of  a  single  man."  Xor  does  reason  count  for  much 
with  him :  "The  evolution  of  history  is  determined  by 
affective  and  mystic  forces  over  which  man's  reason  has 
no  control."  In  this  he  is  absolutely  out  of  sympathy 
with  that  young  France  which  has  been  bearing  the  brunt 
of  the  fighting.  The  soldiers  of  the  Entente,  at  any 
rate,  who  were  not  led  by  a  kind  of  mystic  dream  of 
world-domination,  claimed  that  they  were  fighting  for  the 
reasonable  purpose  of  freeing  the  world  of  the  menace  of 
political  servitude,  and  they  thought  that  their  will 
must,  and  can,  conquer  the  foe.  The  writer  does  not 
mean,  of  course,  that  Le  Bon  is  necessarily  wrong  in  be- 
littling the  power  of  reason  and  of  will,  because  the  mod- 
ern generation  does  not  accept  his  views  on  that  subject; 
but  for  the  present,  such  views  are  not  in  favor,  and  they 
go  against  the  trend  of  the  literature  of  the  war.  Per- 
haps we  ought,  in  justice  to  Le  Bon,  to  add  that  he  him- 
self is  not  always  consistent.  With  his  premises  he 
ought  to  be  content  to  explain  matters  such  as  the  un- 
preparedness  of  France  or  the  aggression  of  Germany, 
but  should  refrain  from  all  moral  judgments  in  the  form 
of  blame  or  regret.  Yet  he  has  been  unable  to  resist  en- 
240 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

By  whom  had  the  French  allowed  themselves 
to  be  led  astray  ?  Some  say  that  it  was  by  their 
politicians;  and  while  the  colonial  policy  of  the 
government,  which  was  so  little  understood  and 
so  grudgingly  supported  before  the  war,  is  now 
praised,  the  criminal  shortsightedness  of  the 
Foreign  Office  which  did  not  avert  the  war  is 
unreservedly  condemned.  Others  blame  the 
financiers  who  chose  rather  to  hoard  their  money 
than  to  make  it  productive ;  in  other  words,  who 
were  content  to  draw  interest  on  their  money  in^ 
stead  of  using  it  in  commercial  undertakings  and 
increasing  economic  wealth — like  that  which  ren- 
dered Germany  so  dangerously  strong.  Hoard- 
ing may  seem  a  lawful  enough  policy,  but  it  is 
unintelligent,  selfish  and  unpatriotic. 

But  the  thoughtful  reader  will  wish  to  carry 
his  inquiry  still  further,  and  to  learn  how  it 

tirely  the  pressure  of  public  opinion,  and  lias  proposed  to 
counteract  by  reason  and  will  the  effects  of  the  aU'ective 
and  mystic  forces.  Le  Bon's  books  have  had  a  very  larjre 
sale,  partly  on  account  of  the  pre-war  fame  of  the  au- 
thor, partly  too  because  the  groat  majority  of  readers 
move  rather  slowly,  and  Le  Bon's  way  of  approaching 
problems  is  still  familiar,  and  therefore  dear  to  them; 
and  they  are  not  to  be  frightened  Iw  a  little  lack  of  con- 
sistency. And  then,  too,  Le  Bon  remains  Le  Bon. 
Every  page  of  every  volume  that  he  writes  offers  stimu- 
lating reading  in  spite  of  a  good  deal  of  repetition.  But 
stimulatiny  reading,  it  must  be  remembered,  does  not 
necessarily  lead  to  clear,  definite  and  practical  conclu- 
sions. 

241 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

came  to  pass  that  the  French  government  was 
allowed  to  pursue  its  dangerous  foreign  policy, 
and  why  the  nation  remained  indifferent  to  the 
lack  of  enterprise  on  the  part  of  financiers. 
The  answer  is  that  the  people  of  France  had  been 
led  astray  by  their  philosophers  and  other  writ- 
ers. They  had  accepted  all  the  more  readily 
such  doctrines  because  these  flattered  their  in- 
clinations by  exalting  the  contemplative  life  and 
the  pursuit  of  intellectual  culture.  Meanwhile, 
the  rest  of  the  world  was  striving  after  material 
gain  and  territorial  expansion. 

There  are  three  philosophies  which  are  sever- 
ally and  jointly  responsible  for  the  dangerous 
apathy  of  France. 

1.  The  first  is  a  sentimental  Socialism  based 
on  a  naive  (although,  no  doubt,  very  beautiful) 
belief  in  the  brotherhood  of  nations:  a  belief 
which  the  war  has  proven  to  be,  if  not  delusive, 
at  least  very  far  from  realization  for  the  present. 
Jaures  was  the  chief  exponent  of  that  doctrine. 

2.  That  Utopian  socialism,  which  appealed 
more  especially  to  the  masses,  assumed  among 
the  middle  classes,  who  claim  to  stand  on  a  some- 
what higher  intellectual  level,  the  form  of  Mor- 
alism.  Moralism  is  based  on  the  assumption 
that  there  exists  in  all  men  an  identical  moral 

242 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

conscience  which  can  be  depended  upon  because 
it  does  not,  and  cannot,  vary  from  one  man  to 
another,  or  from  one  nation  to  another.  What 
made  matters  worse,  was  that  French  philoso- 
phers, who  opposed  Moralism  to  the  materialism 
of  scientific  men,  were  wont  to  point  to  German 
philosophers,  and  particularly  to  Kant,  as  the 
founders  of  their  theories.  In  those  conditions, 
it  was  most  natural  that  the  French  should  take 
it  for  granted  that  the  principles  of  ^Moralism 
were  commonly  accepted  in  Germany.  They 
did  not  realize  that  Kant's  categorical  impera- 
tive had  long  since  been  ousted  by  the  Pan- 
Germanist  creed,  and  the  Germans,  of  course, 
were  most  willing  that  the  French  should  con- 
tinue to  believe  that  Kantian  ethics  were  still  the 
rule  of  conduct  of  the  nation  beyond  the  Rhine. 
The  best  known  exponent  of  Moralist  philosophy 
in  France  is  Boutroux."^ 

3.  The  third  doctrine  is  the  most  baneful  of 
them  all,  not  so  much  because  it  is  philosoph- 
ically unsound  (which  in  itself  may  be  a  matter 
of  little  moment),  but  because  it  has  been  very 

5  The  fact  that  Boutroux  has  assailed  German  ethics 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  does  not  clear  him  of  re- 
sponsibility. One  is  glad  to  know  that  his  eyes  have  at 
last  been  "opened,  but  he  has  never  yet  repudiated  his 
moralistic  writings. 

243 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

popular  and  has  entailed  deplorable  conse- 
quences. It  is  known  as  Intuitionism  and  has 
had  the  support  of  a  man  who  has  achieved  in 
recent  years  a  world-wide  reputation  as  a  leader 
among  philosophers:  Henri  Bergson.  Intuition- 
ism does  not  in  anj^  way  oppose  sentimental  so- 
cialism or  moralism ;  on  the  contrary,  it  supplies 
them  both  with  a  metaphysical  background.  It 
is  anti-intellectualism ;  it  is  subjectivism;  a  phil- 
osophy of  individual  fancy ;  in  a  word,  it  is  just 
the  kind  of  fluid  philosophy — destructive  of  ra- 
tional, realistic  and  virile  thinking, — ^that  Ger- 
many could  wish  France  to  cultivate;  a  philos- 
ophy of  unmanly  sentimentality.  Nothing, 
surely,  could  be  more  deadly  to  France  than  the 
Intuitionism  of  Bergson;  thus,  Bergsonism,  in 
the  eyes  of  the  war  generation,  that  is  the  en- 


emy 


6  It  is  only  fair  to  say  that  Bergsonism  is  capable  of 
another  interpretation.  Peguy  thought  so,  and  so  did 
some  of  the  young  men  who,  like  Lanux,  emphasized  the 
Pragmatic  side  of  that  philosophy.  Peguy  wrote:  "It 
is  a  prejudice,  but  an  absolute,  ineradicable  prejudice 
that  makes  us  regard  an  inflexible  reason  as  better  than 
a  flexible  one.  ...  It  is  evident,  however,  that  elastic, 
flexible  methods  (a  flexible  logic,  for  instance,  or  a 
^flexible  ethic),  are  more  severe,  for  they  are  able  to  fol- 
low thi'ir  object  more  closely.  A  rigid  moral  law  will 
let  crimes  slip  through  its  meshes  that  a  flexible  law 
would  pursue,  track  down  and  denqunce."  One  might 
answer  that  if  Bergsonism  is  so  very  elastic,  it  might  even 
244 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

Any  one  who  is  interested  in  the  discussion  of 
Intuitionism  should  read  Julien  Benda's  vigor- 
ous Sentiments  de  Critias  (1917).  Benda  con- 
trasts resolutely  and  with  fearless  outspoken- 
ness, the  intellectualisni  of  French  thought  from 
Descartes  to  modern  times  with  that  German 
thought  which — whether  sincerely  or  with  a  view 
to  sidetrack  an  enemy — always  leaves  something 
to  intuition.  Even  in  its  best  form,  i,  e.,  in 
Kantian  transcendentalism,  German  thought  at- 
tempts to  explain  what  to  the  human  intellect  is 
inexplicable.  It  is  bound  therefore  to  end  in 
confusion,  and,  in  the  end,  has  to  abandon  reason 
and  resort  to  intuition  to  get  out  of  its  difficul- 
ties— somehow.  "There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
truth  is  always  obscure,  mysterious  at  bottom, 
and  no  definite  idea  can  exhaust  its  richness;  but 
obscure  notions,  w^hich  are  for  the  most  part  only 
confused,  equivocal  pseudo-ideas,  are  just  as 
powerless  to  state  it  completely,  and  with  such 
notions  we  are  in  constant  danger  of  being  led 

offer  shelter  to  Bernardism.  If  Intuitionism  requires  no 
rational  jjrinciples  of  justice,  for  instance,  what  conceiv- 
able objection  can  there  be  to  the  acceptance  of  Might 
(as  the  Germans  have  done)  rather  than  of  Right  (as 
the  Allies  have  done),  as  the  criterion  of  the  Good? 
One  may  venture  to  say  that,  had  Peguy  lived,  he  would 
have  seen  this,  and  with  characteristic  frankness  and 
honesty,  would  have  wTitten  a  Cahier  repudiating  his 
1914  utterances. 

245 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

astray."  That  quotation  from  Parodi  sums  up 
the  contention  of  the  whole  of  Benda  's  energetic 
book. 

Intuitionism  was  the  gift  of  the  German  Ro- 
manticists to  the  world ;  and,  had  it  not  been  for 
men  such  as  Comte,  Taine  and  Ribot,  France 
would  have  been  lured  by  it  out  of  its  normal 
course.  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  all  theories 
which  are  not  amenable  to  rational  thought,  are 
German:  Intuitionism,  is  the  theory  that  Might 
is  Right ;  Intuitionism  again  the  theory  of  the 
superiority  of  the  war-waging  man;  Intuition- 
ism once  more  the  theory  of  the  right  of  one  race 
to  rule  over  others;  and  Intuitionism  too  the 
theory  of  the  State  opposed  to  the  Individual.^ 

Benda  has  a  particular  right  unmercifully,  to 
track  down  Bergson.  His  case  is  certainly  not 
that  of  the  man  who  turns  prophet  after  the 
event.  He  had,  before  the  war,  entered  his  pro- 
test (see  his  Bergsoyiisme  ou  une  Philosophie  de 
la  Mohilite).     Benda  is  thoroughgoing,  for  he  is 

7  We  must  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled  by  words. 
One  often  speaks  of  the  "mysticism"  of  Peguy,  but  that 
word  would  convey  to  the  mind  of  young  Frenchmen  the 
idea  that  Peguy  defended  with  a  mystic  ardor  ideas  that 
were  based  on  such  strong  rational  argviments  that  there 
could  remain  no  doubt  concerning  their  truth.  It  is 
Descartes'  idea  that  plain,  rational  evidence  is  the 
criterion  of  truth. 

246 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

not  at  all  certain  that  Bergsonism  can  be  swept 
away.  "We  may  still  witness,"  he  says,  "a  de- 
testation of  the  critical  spirit,  in  the  interests  of 
lyricism,  such  as  the  world  has  never  yet  seen 
.  .  .  and  we  must  reckon  with  the  support  that 
it  will  receive  from  men  whose  reputation  is 
involved,  I  mean  of  that  host  of  writers  who 
merel}'  vibrate  {qui  font  de  la  vibration)  but 
who  never  have  had  the  shadow  of  an  idea.  The 
prospect  is  am-thing  but  cheerful  for  those  whose 
only  power  is  that  of  understanding."  One 
should  take  note  also  of  those  significant  words: 
"It  is  a  serious  matter  that  the  official  thinkers 
of  the  nation  should  be  using  their  authority, 
even  since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  to  endorse 
errors  which  they  know  to  be  errors,  but  which 
they  know  to  be  pleasing  to  their  countrymen 
.  .  .  and  it  is  a  still  more  serious  matter  that 
the  vogue  of  such  thinkers  should  now  be  de- 
pendent upon  such  subservience."  And  with 
even  more  directness:  "B.  and  B.  [Boutroux 
and  Bergson]  take  good  care  not  to  pass  any 
judgment  upon  such  ideas."  [Such  ideas  as 
they  themselves  advocated,  at  least,  up  to  the 
time  of  war.] 

Let  us  therefore  change  our  way  of  thinking, 
and,  above  all,  as  regards  the  war.     "The  mas- 
247 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tery  of  war,  like  that  of  everything  which  be- 
comes more  complex,  must  depend  less  and  less 
upon  art,  and  more  and  more  upon  science.  Art 
is  sole  mistress  only  in  such  matters  as  are  still  in 
their  infancy.  .  .  .  The  reason  why  we  wish 
genius  to  be  always  supreme,  and  why  we  expect 
everything  from  it,  is  first  of  all  because  it  al- 
lows us  to  hope  for  a  speedy  solution,  ...  it  is 
also  a  little  because  it  flatters  our  laziness,  but 
it  is  especially  because  a  certain  sestheticism  is 
to-day  in  favor,  which  'lends  religion'  only  to 
the  phenomena  of  the  instinct  and  of  sponta- 
neity, and  considers  as  rather  vulgar  the  will 
based  on  system  and  organization.  Would  it  be 
too  much  to  ask,  in  our  present  circumstances, 
for  an  inversion  of  values  (renversement  des 
valeurs)V' — A  substitution  of  intellectualism 
for  intuitionism  ? 

Benda  continues  his  campaign.  Since  the  war 
he  has  published  a  new  book  Belphegor,  Essai 
sur  VEsthetique  de  la  present e  Societe  frangaise. 
(Emile-Paul,  1919.) 

*        *        * 

A  book  of  a  similar  kind  is  Rene  Lote's  Les 

Legons  de  la  Guerre  (1917).     The  author  of  Les 

Origines   Mystiques   de    la   Science   Allemande 

(1913),     Du     Chri-stianisme     au     Germanisme 

248 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

(which  he  says  was  written  in  1911  although 
published  only  in  1914),  and  again,  during  the 
war,  of  Germania  (1916),  is,  if  possible,  even 
more  pitiless  than  Benda  for  those  who,  in  his 
opinion,  have  poisoned  French  intellectualism 
with  fanciful  metaphysicism.  His  work  is  an 
ardent  plea  for  a  return  to  clear  rational  think- 
ing, such  as  prevailed  in  France  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eight eentli  centuries.  It  is  a  thor- 
oughgoing attack  against  Romanticism,  and  be- 
yond it,  against  the  sentimentalism  of  Rousseau 
whose  obscure  thought  places  the  Ego  at  the  cen- 
ter of  the  universe  and  thus  justifies  all  passion. 
His  book  is  dedicated  to  Seilliere,  and  it  con- 
tinues the  tradition  established  by  Seilliere,  Las- 
serre  and  Maurras,  and  before  them  by  Brune- 
tiere,  Bourget  and  Lemaitre.  But  in  some  re- 
spects his  method  differs  from  that  of  his  fore- 
runners of  twenty,  or  even  of  ten  years  before. 
It  is  not  a  narrow-minded  attack  on  the  scientists 
whose  theories  had  been  interpreted  in  terms  of 
moral  materialism,  nor  does  he  allow  his  sober 
argumentation  to  be  weakened  by  outbursts  of 
passion.  His  blows  are  clean,  direct  and  hard. 
He  traces  the  origin  of  the  evil  farther  back  than 
Benda  or  even  than  Edgar  Quinet  had  done. 
According  to  him,  systematic  attempts  to  depre- 
249 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

ciate  French  civilization  and  to  undermine 
French  influence  began  as  early  as  the  eighteenth 
century:  Catherine  of  Russia  was  merely  using 
flattery  towards  Frenchmen  of  the  age  of  Ra- 
tionalism when  she  made  them  believe  that  all 
Europe  stood  in  admiration  before  the  clever 
geniuses  of  France ;  and  the  same  might  be  said 
of  Frederick  the  Great  and  his  so-called  protec- 
tion of  French  men  of  letters  who  were  exiled  on 
account  of  their  advanced  ideas  (Voltaire,  Di- 
derot, etc.).  Those  bourgeois  monarchs  really 
got  the  best  of  France,  and  by  astutely  flattering 
Frenchmen  rendered  them  harmless.  Lote  has 
some  remarkably  suggestive,  if  sometimes  not 
quite  convincing  passages :  for  instance,  when  he 
points  out  the  "idyllic  honhomie  of  the  old 
Gessner, "  preparing  the  sentimental  Germany 
which  could  be  used  later,  to  conceal  for  a  time 
from  the  outside  world  the  lusty  beast  of  the  in- 
vasion of  Belgium ;  or  when  he  exposes  the  ' '  aus- 
tere criticism"  of  Lessing  which  was  meant  to 
ruin  the  prestige  which  French  classical  litera- 
ture had  enjoyed  in  Germany ;  or  again  when  he 
points  out  the  rGoethe  who  has  been  "worked 
with  great  skill":  first  the  "European"  Goethe 
who  was  presented  to  France  as  a  proof  that 
250 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

there  was  but  one  Europe;  then  the  "Olympian" 
Goethe  representing  a  civilization  which  was 
above  the  low,  human  aims  of  dominion  and  con- 
quest;  or  again,  the  "Bourgeois"  poet  of  Her- 
mann and  Dorothea,  who  was  so  wtII  conceived 
to  convince  the  French  of  the  good-heartedness 
of  Goethe,  and  to  excite  their  admiration  for  his 
high  intellect.  In  a  word,  Goethe  plays  a  sym- 
bolic part  in  the  "illusions"  of  the  French  peo- 
ple and  has  contributed  more  than  any  other 
to  make  them  "heedless  {etourdis}  apostles  of 
mediocre  Germany ' ' ; — a  Germany,  be  it  said, 
which  was  the  ungrateful  heir  of  a  superior  civ- 
ilization: that  of  Louis  the  Fourteenth.  Let 
France,  therefore,  cease  from  bending  the  knee 
before  the  ' '  romanesque  adyenture  of  the  alche- 
mist Faust." 

Elsewhere  Lote  sees  in  that  persistent  study 
of  Romance  philology  by  German  scholars  a 
clearly  unfriendly  purpose;  that,  namely,  of 
undermining  the  national  sentiment,  by  showing 
in  French  literature  and  in  the  various  French 
dialects  the  traces  of  entirely  different  races 
which  had  been  accidentally  united  under  one 
political  rule.  Here,  for  instance,  were  the  Celts, 
there  the  Walloons,  there  again  the  Provengaux. 
251 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

These  scholars  clearly  wish  to  suggest  that  in 
dismembering  France,  one  would  be  doing  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world. 

But  what  of  philosophy  and  metaphysics? 
Nothing,  of  course,  could  afford  more  satisfac- 
tion to  the  leaders  of  Germany,  than  that  French 
scholars  should  advocate  an  impassible  and  dis- 
interested science,  and  should  put  all  their  en- 
ergy to  the  attainment  of  aimless  erudition. 
Meanwhile,  German  science  identified  its  aims 
with  those  of  imperialistic  Pan-Germanism ;  Ger- 
man science  and  German  inventive  genius 
worked  together  to  perfect  the  Krupp  works, 
while  the  French  philosophers  were  naively  out- 
doing Kant  and  the  old-time  German  philoso- 
phers in  metaphysical  acrobatics.  While  the 
young  men  of  Germany  were  being  indoctri- 
nated into  the  principles  of  Treitschke  and  of 
Bernardi,  the  French  youth  were  bursting  the 
walls  of  the  lecture  room  of  the  intuitionist  meta- 
physician Bergson.  ,  ,  .  Bergson,  again,  has  to 
bear  the  burden  of  reproach. 

The  world — so  Lote  says,  summing  up — is  now 
threatened  with  two  imperialisms.  First,  Pan- 
Germanism  which  would  establish  its  sway  by 
might  of  arms,  and  secondly,  that  gentle,  ' '  evan- 
gelical" Utopian  Socialism,  the  logical  outcome 
252 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

of  which  is  anarchy.  AYhich  of  the  two  ^vill  tri- 
umph? Let  us  hope  that  neither  will,  but  that 
the  world  will  belong  to  science ;  ' '  cruel  but  nec- 
essary science  of  struggle  and  conquest ' ' ;  for,  if 
things  work  out  in  that  manner,  then  the  spirit 
that  inspired  the  classic  civilization  of  France  (a 
civilization  based  on  principles  at  the  same  time 
rational  and  humane),  will  come  to  its  own.  As 
soon  as  clear  thinking  and  keenness  of  intellect 
are  restored  to  their  rightful  places,  France's 
day  will  have  dawned  anew. 

*        *         * 

In  concluding  this  chapter,  we  call  attention 
to  a  movement  started  some  years  before  the 
war,  and  directed  against  the  blind  admiration 
of  the  French  for  certain  German  writers,  and 
the  adoption  of  so-called  German  methods  in  the 
French  Universities.  The  stir  created  in  1911 
by  Agathon's  (Tarde  and  Henri  Massis)  L' Es- 
prit de  la  Xouvelle  Sorhonne,  has  often  been  re- 
called of  late,  and  denunciations  of  that  kind 
have  become  more  violent  since  the  beginning  of 
the  war.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  are 
those  who  regard  the  tabooing  of  everj-thing  Ger- 
man as  excessive;  and  they  have  been  able  to 
point  to  a  great  lack  of  unanimity  among  their 
opponents  as  to  which  of  the  German  authors 
253 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

were  particularly  objectionable.  Many,  for  in- 
stance, are  agreed  that  Nietzsche's  following  in 
France  has  been  ill-omened,  while  others  main- 
tain that  Nietzsche  has  been  misunderstood  and 
that,  moreover,  he  despised  his  own  people  as 
much  as  any  other  writer  since  his  time. 

There  exists  quite  a  literature  on  that  sub- 
ject. While  Claudel,  Lote  and  Benda  exorcize 
Nietzsche,  Goethe  and  Kant,  to  say  nothing  of 
Luther,  "who  is  with  the  Devil"  (Claudel), 
Henri  Bois,  in  Kant  et  I'Allemagne,  clears  Kant 
of  the  accusation  of  having  been  a  forerunner 
of  Pan-Germanism  and  the  "inspirer  of  the 
military  philosophy  invoked  bj^  Germans  to  jus- 
tify their  misdeeds,"  and  Alphonse  Aulard,  in 
La  Paix  Future  d'apres  la  Revolution  Frangaise 
et  Ka7it,  recalls  Kant's  plan  for  universal  peace. 
Even  Snares,  as  was  pointed  out  in  a  previous 
chapter,  maintains  that  the  spirit  of  Kant  is 
much  less  German  than  that  of  an  author  of  the 
type  of  Joseph  de  Maistre.  A  young  poet, 
Henri  Derieux,  is  strongly  in  favor  of  keeping 
alive  our  admiration  of  German  classics  (see  be- 
low, Part  II,  ch.  1 ) .  Again  J.  Riviere,  in  L  'Al- 
lemand,  reproaches  Kant  harshly  for  his  content- 
less  "categorical  imperative"  which  the  Hohen- 
zollerns  used  for  the  profit  of  Pan-Germanism. 
254 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

Lasserr^,  in  a  special  little  book  on  Le  German- 
isme  et  I'Esprit  Humain,  condemns  Kant,  Schel- 
ling  and  Fichte,  but  recommends  Goethe,  Heine 
and  Nietzsche.  C.  Bonnet  in  I'Ame  du  Soldut 
(Chapter  III),  meekly  welcomes  them  all — he  is 
almost  Romain-Rollandist.® 

III.  Neo-Catholicism  and  "Papalism" 

If  we  attempt  to  define  the  constructive  doc- 
trines of  the  French  war  literature,  we  shall  find 
that  there  are  two  which  are  well  characterized. 

They  run  parallel  to  each  other ;  but  while  the 
one  seems  to  have  yielded  already  the  best  that 
may  be  expected  of  it,  the  other,  for  reasons 
which  we  shall  explain  later,  has  been  slower  in 
its  development.  A  brighter  future  is,  however, 
undoubtedly  in  store  for  it,  and  the  lateness  of 
its  development  will  not  be  without  compensa- 

8  For  documents  relating  to  the  discussion  of  the 
value  of  German  autliors  and  of  their  moral  respon- 
sibility in  regard  to  the  present  war  (Luther,  Goethe, 
Nietzsche),  cf.  Vic,  Litterature  de  la  (Juerre,  vol.  I, 
pp.  07-72.  An  account  of  the  discussion  of  the  case 
of  Nietzsche  alone  would  easily  fill  a  volume.  Writers 
have  vied  with  each  other  to  obscure  an  issue  which  is 
quite  clear :  Nietzsche  hated  the  Germans  and  some- 
times praised  the  French ;  nevertheless  the  Germans, 
who  allow  nothing  to  go  to  waste  which  will  help 
Pan-Germanism,  have  made  abundant  use  of  his  Gospel 
of  Might  as  opposed  to  the  gospel  of  effeminate  Chris- 
tianity i)reached  even  now  bv  Pacifists. 
255 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tions.  The  first  of  these  doctrines  may  be 
termed  "Papalism,"  by  which  we  mean  Neo- 
Catholicism  in  so  far  as  it  represents  a  political 
rather  than  a  theological  creed ;  the  other  might 
be  called,  provisionally,  ''Democratism,"  a  term 
which  is  vague,  but  rightly  so,  for  it  is  intended 
to  cover  a  multitude  of  shades  of  one  general 
trend  of  thought. 

Papalism  is  a  pre-war  doctrine.  It  was  first 
taught  (together  with  violent  yet  guarded  out- 
bursts of  monarchism  from  which  it  is  now  al- 
most entirely  dissociated)  in  the  hope  of  putting 
a  stop  to  the  disorders  resulting  from  the  strife 
of  various  republican  parties:  disorders  which 
appeared  increasingly  dangerous  as  the  menace 
of  a  war  with  Germany  came  to  be  more  clearly 
realized.  Twenty-five  years  ago,  philosophers 
and  men-of-letters  like  Brunetiere,  Bourget,  Le- 
maitre  and  Coppee  propounded  views  similar  to 
those  of  Papalism  which  were  then  set  forth,  for 
the  general  public,  in  the  columns  of  the  famous 
periodical  L' Action  Frangaise  (from  1899  for- 
ward). The  movement,  with  its  chiefly  political 
aspect,  was  then  called  "Nationalism."  Both 
the  political  and  the  philosophical  expositions  of 
that  doctrine  were  given  later  by  Barres  in  his 
256 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

two  remarkable  series  of  novels,  Le  Roman  de 
VEnergie  Nationale  and  Les  Bastions  de  I'Est 
(1898-1902)  ;  by  Charles  Maurras  in  the  Revue 
Encyclopedique  Larousse  (1895-1900  )and  in 
his  L'Avenir  de  V Intelligence  (1905)  ;  by  Pierre 
Lasserre  in  Le  Romantisme  Frangais  (1908), 
and  by  E.  Seilliere  in  Le  Mai  Romantique 
(1908).  Papalism  received  also  a  great  forward 
impulse  from  the  current  of  opinion  created  in- 
dependently by  Charles  Peguy,  who  connected 
the  political  revival  of  France  with  the  mystico- 
patriotic  inspiration  of  the  Virgin  Mary, — the 
patron  saint  of  Christianity  and  the  impersona- 
tion of  the  divine  love  as  symbolized  in  the  great 
French  cathedrals — ;  and  with  that  of  Joan  of 
Arc  and  of  Sainte  Genevieve,  the  patron  saints, 
respectively,  of  France  and  of  the  Cit}-  of  Paris. 

The  thinking  public  of  France  was  therefore 
not  unprepared  for  the  doctrine  of  Papalism 
when,  after  two  years  of  war,  the  discussion  of 
social  theories  and  of  political  organization  was 
resumed.  As  might  be  expected,  Charles  Maur- 
ras, who  was  alread}'-  known  as  one  of  the  most 
forceful  writers  of  the  day,  made  a  skillful  and 
decisive  use  of  the  opportunity  which  presented 
itself.  Two  circumstances  favored  his  pointing 
257 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  Rome  as  the  source  of  hope  and  of  inspiration : 
first,  the  revival  of  interest  in  religious  matters 
which  the  war  had  awakened,  and  secondly,  the 
fact  that  the  very  outrages  of  the  Grermans  in 
Belgium,  and  especially  at  Louvain,  had  given  to 
a  Roman  prelate.  Cardinal  Mercier,  a  prominent 
place  among  war  personalities.  Maurras's  ar- 
ticles have  been  reprinted  in  book  form.  They 
form  several  volumes  from  which  we  select  Le 
Pape,  la  Gruerre  et  la  Paix  as  typical  at  once  of 
his  style  and  of  his  teachings.  That  work,  in- 
deed, exhibits  all  the  vigor,  incisiveness  and  log- 
ical consistency  which  are  characteristic  of 
Maurras.  Unlike  Brunetiere,  whose  dialectic 
power  is  often  weakened  by  the  use  of  heavy  and 
complex  sentences,  Maurras  has  the  neat,  clear 
traditional  French  style  of  Bossuet  and  Joseph 
de  Maistre. 

Reduced  to  its  simplest  expression,  his  argu- 
ment is  this :  The  world  must  return  to  the  idea 
of  a  catholicity  of  the  human  race,  in  matters  of 
social  organization  as  well  as  in  philosophical 
thought ;  there  must  be  some  sort  of  link  between 
and  above  the  national  units  of  the  world :  some 
concrete  medium  of  universal  communion.  That 
universal  communion,  that  catholicity,  was  at 
one  time  symbolized  by  the  person  of  the  Pope ; 
258 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

even  to-day,  the  Pope  remains  the  incarnation — 
the  only  one — of  the  idea  of  universality.  So- 
cialistic universality  has  failed;  imperialistic 
universality,  in  the  German  sense,  will  fail  also. 
"That  is  why  we  wish  to  place  before  the  public 
a  more  reasonable  conception  than  they  have 
held  heretofore,  of  what  the  Papacy  stands  for, 
and  of  its  function  among  the  nations  and  above 
them." 

"That  lofty  universalit}'  which  once  existed," 
Maurras  continues,  "was  greatly  impaired  by 
the  Reformation.  The  Protestant  movement  has 
meant  the  substitution  of  the  irrational,  subjec- 
tive, moral  conscience  of  individuals,  and  hence- 
forth of  nations,  for  the  obedience  to  govern- 
ments which  dealt  with  problems  rationally,  i.  e., 
objectively  and  by  means  of  universal  princi- 
ples. That  movement  was  bound  to  lead  to  dis- 
order ;  and,  indeed,  the  civilized  world  has  never 
known  a  worse  period  than  that  of  the  religious 
M'ars  which  spread  all  over  Europe  as  a  conse- 
quence of  the  Reformation."  Maurras  adopts 
the  formula  enunciated  by  Barres :  "  no  possibil- 
ity of  a  restoration  of  the  Commonwealth  {la 
chose  puhlique)  without  a  doctrine."  In  our 
own  times,  Protestant  subjectivism  has  led  to  the 
monstrous  attempt  on  the  part  of  an  individual 
259 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

to  bring  all  others  into  subjection  to  his  will: 
i.  e.,  to  Imperialism.  His  megalomaniac  ' '  con- 
science ' '  convinces  the  Kaiser  that  he  represents 
God  on  earth,  and  that  he  must  rule  the  world 
according  to  his  inspiration.  It  is  thus  that 
Maurras  attempts  to  give  an  exposition  of  what 
he  calls  "the  perennial  antinomy  of  German 
Lutheranism  and  of  Latin  Catholicism." 

Another  point  of  jMaurras  's  doctrine  is  this : — 
he  believes,  as  we  have  just  said,  in  the  possi- 
bility of  a  rational  organization,  of  a  harmonious 
cooperation  of  the  nations  under  one  rule;  and 
that  rule  he  conceives  as  a  moral  power  like  that 
of  the  Pope.  But  he  does  not  regard  all  nations 
as  equal  to  each  other  in  mental  development, 
nor  does  he  admit  that  they  should  all  have  an 
equal  voice  in  the  settlement  of  international  af- 
fairs. Such  a  privilege  should  bear  some  kind 
of  relation  to  the  stage  of  intellectual  develop- 
ment which  a  nation  has  reached.  Like  Plato's 
republic,  Maurras 's  society  of  nations  is  hierar- 
chic in  form :  ' '  The  belief  in  the  equality  of  na- 
tions is  the  cause  of  the  anarchy  which  exists 
among  European  nations.  .  .  .  France  is  cer- 
tainly a  nation  (patrie)  but  not  all  nations  are 
France,  nor  comparable  to  France.  There  are 
certain  obligations  which  all  nations  must  ac- 
260 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

cept ;  but  who  believes  that  the  man  from  Ger- 
many, however  vehemently  patriotic  he  may  be, 
is  endowed  with  the  same  qualities  (hiens)  or 
with  so  many  of  them,  as  the  Frenchman?" 
Maurras  admits,  of  course,  that  the  Republican 
government  of  France  has  not  been  a  model  of 
what  a  political  organization  should  be,  but  he 
recalls  the  seventeenth  century  when  French 
diplomacy'  under  Cardinals  Richelieu  and  Ma- 
zarin  (not  to  mention  Bossuet),  gave  to  France 
a  world-wide  prestige  in  matters  political,  and 
won  for  her  the  title  of  ' '  Eldest  Daughter  of  the 
Church."  And  he  makes  the  practical  sugges- 
tion that  what  the  French  government  should 
do,  is  to  send  again  a  delegate  to  the  Vatican 
where  at  present  the  Austrian  delegate  controls, 
unchecked,  the  only  international  political  or- 
ganization in  existence.^  (This  question  of  send- 
ing again  an  official  representative  of  the  French 
Government  to  the  Vatican  was  discussed  in 
an  Extraordinary  Session  of  the  Cardinals  of 
France,  in  Paris,  Februarj^  19,  1919.) 

9  J.  Benda,  who  is  a  pitiless  critic  of  everything  that 
does  not  seem  to  him  clear  and  straightforward,  has 
devoted  several  pages  of  his  Sentiments  de  Critias 
(pp.  91-97)  to  the  attitude  of  the  Pope  during  the 
present  war.  These  pages  are  well  worth  reading  in 
view  of  the  repeated  attempts  of  Maurras  to  justify  the 
neutrality  which  the  Pope  has  maintained  in  spite  of  the 
barbarities  committed  by  the  Germans. 
2G1 


FKENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Maiirras  takes  up  the  attack,  referred  to  above, 
against  all  those  who,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, represent  the  Lutheran  spirit  in  France. 
He  belabors  the  pseudo-latinists  {faux  latini- 
sants)  who,  like  Pichon,  follow  "wretched  mod- 
els of  barbarian  make,  i.  e.,  Germanic  and  Lu- 
theran models  set  by  Kant  and  Rousseau."  As 
for  Boutroux,  one  of  the  guilty  ones,  he  at  least 
has  been  honest  enough  to  go  beyond  Fichte  and 
to  acknowledge  that  Kant  is  the  father  of  nine- 
teenth century  Lutheranism.  But  if  the  evil  in- 
fluence of  Kant  is  conceded,  why  then  hesitate  to 
impeach  Rousseau  also?  Rousseau,  who  was 
born  on  the  borderline  between  Latinity  and 
Germanism ;  Rousseau,  the  revolutionist  and  the 
inspirer  of  Kant  and  of  Germany ;  Rousseau,  by 
the  same  principle,  the  author  of  the  Revolution 
which  has  been  called  "French";  Rousseau,  the 
latest  incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  Luther  ?  Else- 
where, Maurras  declares  that  the  Reign  of  Ter- 
ror was  the  logical  outcome  of  the  Declaration  of 
the  Rights  of  Man  and  of  Rousseau  Sentimen- 
talism,  just  as  the  Imperialism  of  Fichte  was  the 
logical  outcome  of  Kant's  Individualism.  He 
even  goes  so  far  as  to  make  Protestantism  re- 
sponsible for  the  sinking  of  the  Lusita/nim.  "In 
abandoning,"  he  says,  "intellectual  and  moral 
262 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

ideals  in  favor  of  material  progress,  the  Refor- 
mation was  bound  to  ])ring  about  such  horrors. 
To  counteract  the  tendency  of  that  fatal  material 
progress,  a  better  and  higher  education  of  the 
souls  of  men  would  have  been  necessary ;  but  no 
such  education  was  given,  and  the  men  of  to-day 
are  infinitely  less  conscious  of  any  feeling  of 
brotherhood  than  were  the  men  of  five  hundred, 
or  even  of  tw^o  hundred,  years  ago.  The  inno- 
cent passengers  of  the  Lusitania  were  nothing  to 
William  II  and  his  subjects."  It  need  scarcely 
be  said  that  Maurras  entertains  no  kindly  feel- 
ings toward  Bergson,  whose  dangerous  popular- 
ity irritates  him  :  "In  these  days, ' '  he  writes, 
"one  may  not  utter  the  word  quality  in  any  of- 
ficial gathering  without  bowing  deeply  before 
that  Scotch  Jew  who  is  not  even  a  thorough 
student  of  Aristotle  and  of  Saint  Thomas."  ^° 
*         *         * 

There  are  two  other  books  of  a  similar  tend- 
ency which  have  attracted  a  good  deal  of  atten- 
tion. They  are  Henri  Massis'  Le  Sacrifice 
(1917), — a    work   which    was   crowned   by   the 

10  A  good  and  impartial  appreciation  of  Maurras'a 
work  came  out  in  1918:  Gonzague  True,  Charles 
Maurras  et  son  temps,  A.  Colin  (80  pages)  ;  and  another, 
A.  Maurel,  Six  Ecrivains  de  la  Guerre,  pp.  97-126 
(1917). 

263 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Academy,  and  Vallery-Eadot 's  Le  Reveil  de 
r Esprit  (1917). 

Massis  is  the  man  who  had  written,  in  1912,  in 
collaboration  with  the  younger  Tarde,  L' Esprit 
de  la  Nouvelle  Sorhonne,  in  which  the  "Ger- 
man" methods  of  some  Paris  professors  were 
sharply  criticized.  It  was  soon  after  this  rather 
sensational  work  that  he  began  to  shift  towards 
Catholic  dogmatism,  and  finally  went  as  far  as 
it  seems  possible  to  go  in  that  direction.^^ 

There  is,  however,  a  marked  contrast  between 
Massis  and  Maurras.  Maurras  has  a  keen,  ro- 
bust mind,  or,  if  you  will,  the  mind  of  a  dialec- 
tician, and  it  is  in  the  name  of  reason  that  he 
advocates  a  social  organization  of  the  world  un- 
der the  supervision  of  the  Pope ;  but  Massis  is  a 
fanatic;  with  a  generous,  but  really  quite  unse- 
ductive  ardor,  he  denounces  as  the  primary  cause 
of  the  present  world  catastrophe,  that  \erj Rea- 
son which  Maurras  opposes  so  strongly  to  the 
subjective  Protestant  conscience.  His  book  is 
alert  and  stimulating,  but  even  when  his  elo- 

11  Massis  was  a  special  friend  of  Ernest  Psichari,  the 
young  Catholic  officer  killed  in  the  first  days  of  the^  war, 
author  of  L'Appel  des  Armes  and  of  La  Veillee  du 
Centurion.  In  commemoration  of  this  friendship,  Massis 
wrote  in  1916  a  little  volume  on  Ernest  Psichari.  His 
book  Le  Sacrifice  is  made  of  a  collection  of  articles 
written  since  1914. 

264 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

quence  moves  us,  it  fails  to  convince, — how  could 
it,  since  he  never  ceases  to  use  reason  to  prove 
that  reason  deceives,  and  must  be  replaced  by 
dogma?  He  evokes  Peguy  and  Psichari,  dis- 
cusses war  and  politics,  always  abusing  "la  rai- 
son  depravee  des  modernes"  and  "la  vaste  et 
charnelle  futilite  du  temps  present."  He  inter- 
prets the  fierce  struggle  of  the  war  mystically, 
as  the  death  grapple  of  the  flesh  and  of  the 
spirit ;  and  assigns  to  suffering  France  a  role 
comparable  to  that  of  Christ  when  he  died  to  ex- 
piate the  sins  of  the  fallen  human  race.  His 
view  of  the  war  is  that  it  is  an  act  of  purification 
of  the  world  by  Catholic  France:  "All  that  is 
spirit  will  be  saved  in  this  struggle;  therefore, 
whether  we  will  it  or  not,  it  is  the  Christian 
world  that  France  is  fighting  for." 
*         *         * 

Yallerj'-Radot  was  known  before  the  war  as 
the  author  of  a  novel  which  told  in  burning 
words  of  a  conversion  to  Catholicism,  L'llomme 
de  Desir  (1913).  Since  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  he  has  published  an  Anthologie  de  la  Poesie 
Catholique,  de  Villon  a  nos  jours  (1915),  in  the 
preface  to  which  Claudel  wrote:  "Who  would 
suspect,  in  reading  Rabelais,  Montaigne,  Racine, 
Moliere,  Victor  Hugo,  that  a  God  died  for  us  on 
265 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  Cross?  This  must  cease."  His  Reveil  de 
I' Esprit  (1917),  even  more  than  Massis's  book, 
may  damage  the  cause  it  was  meant  to  defend. 
The  reader  of  it,  who  may  perhaps  have  been 
convinced  by  the  wonderful  dialectic  skill  of 
Maurras,  may  well  be  shocked  and  tempted  to 
part  company  with  the  Neo-Catholic  movement. 
This  exalted,  not  to  say  inflated,  stjde,  may  be 
dazzling,  but  it  is  confusing  as  well.  Like  Mas- 
sis,  Radot  indulges  in  furious  attacks  against  ra- 
tionalism, Rousseau,  Protestantism  and  the  ma- 
terialism of  the  present  age,  but  we  have  looked 
in  vain  for  that  clear  and  concrete  thought  of 
Descartes  and  of  Bossuet  which  he  claims  to  be 
the  distinguishing  mark  of  Neo-Catholicism.  To 
denounce  bitterly  "democratic  fetishism"  or  the 
"morbus  democraticiis"  is  mere  verbal  elo- 
quence ;  or  to  talk  loudly  of  the  ' '  Protestant  and 
Revolutionary  pride  which  has  passed  into  our 
veins  with  the  liberal  virus "  is  no  refutation ;  to 
call  the  other  party  "Cain"  while  reserving  for 
oneself  the  designation  of  "Abel,"  has  little 
value  as  an  argument ;  and  to  proclaim  unceas- 
ingly that  one  represents  the  elite  without  adduc- 
ing any  proof  in  support  of  one's  claim,  is,  to 
say  the  least,  dangerous.  Neither  does  Vallery- 
Radot  show  himself  a  chivalrous  opponent  by  the 
266 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

preposterous  summary  of  Rousseau's  doctrine  to 
which  he  treats  his  readers  in  the  introduction 
to  his  book ;  especially  in  view  of  the  fact  that  his 
fanatical  diatribes  against  twentieth  century 
frivolity  and  corruption,  remind  one  very  strik- 
ingly of  Rousseau's  famous  Prosopopoeia  of  Fab- 
ricius  directed  against  eighteenth  centurj'  frivol- 
ity and  corruption.  When  he  actually  condemns 
the  sanitary  and  well  lighted  houses  of  our  times, 
he  makes  proof,  not  of  superiority,  but  of  posi- 
tive short-sightedness.  And  has  he  a  right  to 
claim,  as  he  does,  that  the  world  is  already  con- 
verted to  his  views?  "All  the  forms  of  thought 
which  tried  to  eclipse  Christianity  during  the 
nineteenth  century,  and  which  seduced  even  the 
elite, — Pantheism,  Rationalism,  Ilumanitarian- 
ism  and  what  not  ? — have  fallen  as  rotten  fruits 
to  the  ground;  they  are  things  dead,  to  which 
only  individualistic  fetishism  and  the  vanity  of 
the  old  world,  succeed  in  lending  the  appearance 
of  life. ' '  Even  the  fact  that  it  is  from  the  depths 
of  the  trenches  that  he  proclaims  his  triumph, 
cannot  remove  all  our  doubts  as  to  the  reality  of 
his  victory ;  and  one  cannot  help  wondering  why 
he  should,  in  that  case,  expend  so  much  passion- 
ate energy  in  tramping  on  a  fallen  foe. 

Nevertheless,  any  one  who  wishes  to  inquire 
267 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

into  that  current  of  thought  -would  do  well  to  take 
cognizance  of  Vallery-Radot's  book.  The  Chris- 
tian-Catholic interpretation  of  the  war  he  shares 
with  Massis.  He  too  regards  the  cataclysm  as 
sent  by  God.  "I  have  understood  the  criminal 
folly  of  our  elders.  ...  I  have  understood  the 
warning  of  the  Sacred  Heart.  Matter  [materia] 
progress]  has  turned  against  us  and  crushed  us; 
that  is  the  secret  of  this  war. ' '  But  * '  our  genera- 
tion has  done  with  the  Manichean  suicide  [i.  e., 
the  idea  of  the  equal  power  of  mind  and  matter, 
for  matter  must  be  subordinated  to  mind]  ;  we 
have  re-discovered  the  truth  of  the  Incarnation ; 
our  generation  wants  the  spirit  to  become  flesh 
and  to  sanctify  the  flesh,  as  the  Word  whom  it 
worships,  did  of  old. ' ' 

Onl}^  one  more  example  of  that  curious  mystic 
style.  Valler3"-Iladot  protests  against  the  term 
"poilu."  "No,"  he  cries,  "the  real  hero  is 
much  more  beautiful  than  that  hairy  animal  of 
the  false  legend ;  it  is  the  human  race  which  is 
offering  itself  as  a  sacrifice  in  union  with  the 
God-Man  (en  union  avec  VHomme-Dieu)  ;  and 
what  we  are  beholding  is  a  new  Passion  of  Christ 
even  though  he  (the  soldier)  is  unconscious  of,  or 
denies,  it.  Who  could  fail  to  recognize  in  these 
men,  crushed  under  the  burden  of  their  work, 
268 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

bleeding  from  their  wounds,  suffering  from  the 
cold,  covered  with  the  mud  of  the  trenches,  the 
tortured  limbs  of  the  dying  Christ  .  .  .    ?"  ^- 

IV.  Economic  Democratism 

The  second  constructive  theory,  to  which  we 
have  given  the  name  of  "Democratism,"  al- 
though not  new  to  students  of  sociology,  was 
slower  in  its  development,  partly  because  its 
technical  nature  made  its  appeal  more  difficult  to 
the  general  public  than  that  of  a  Catholic  the- 
ory, and  partly,  too,  because  circumstances — we 
refer  to  the  war — were  unfavorable  to  its  expo- 
sition. "Democratism"  aims  at  a  shifting  of 
the  center  of  gravity  of  our  modern  conception 
of  the  State.     Discarding  as  obsolete  the  tradi- 

12  We  have  not  thought  it  advisable  to  discuss  here 
certain  books  wliich  advance  somewhat  similar  views, 
but  do  so  in  a  commonplace  manner ;  such  books,  for 
instance,  as  Victor  Giraud's  Le  Miracle  Franrais. 
Giraud  is  a  disciple  of  Brunctiere.  but  the  fact  that  he 
endeavors  to  be  so  very  diplomatic  in  the  presentation 
of  the  Neo-catholic  doctrine,  could  almost  make  one 
doubt  his  sincerity:  while  his  style  may  appeal  to  the 
masses,  it  will  leave  the  thinker  unmoved.  How  awk- 
ward and  trite,  for  instance,  is  liis  discussion  of  the 
literature  of  to-morrow!  According  to  liim,  that  litera- 
ture will  be  distinguished  by  a  return  to  French  tradi- 
tional classicism,  it  will  be  patriotic,  will  not  advocate 
the  cult  of  the  ego.  but  will  teach  solidarity  and  it  will 
have  religious  inspiration.  In  other  words,  tlie  litera- 
ture of  to-morrow  will  be  exactly  what  men  of  Giraud's 
opinion  would  wish  it  to  be. 

269 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tional  principles  of  statesmanship,  and  putting 
aside  as  irrelevant  the  question  of  the  form  of 
government  whether  monarchic,  aristocratic  or 
republican,  and  the  various  theories  on  which 
they  are  based — the  divine  right  of  kings,  the 
natural  rights  of  individuals, — it  proposes  a  re- 
organization of  society  on  a  purely  economic 
basis.  In  other  and  simpler  terms.  Democrat- 
ism regards  the  State  as  a  purely  bommercial 
and  business  proposition. 

The  entrance  of  America  into  the  war  and  the 
revolution  in  Russia  furnished  favorable  oppor- 
tunities for  the  bold  setting  forth  of  those  ideas 
which,  hitherto,  had  been  expressed  only  with 
the  greatest  reserve.  It  is  true  that  the  Russian 
revolution,  although  democratic  at  the  outset, 
led  to  temporary  disaster;  but  every  one  was 
aware  that  old-time  political  intrigues  were  at 
work,  and  were  responsible  for  its  failure. 
]\Ioreover,  while  Russia  was  apparently  drift- 
ing away,  America 's  social  organization  began  to 
be  examined  with  more  sympathy  and  interest. 
It  became  evident  that  a  democratic  political 
rule  was,  to  say  the  least,  possible. 

Even  without  the  war,  that  theory  of  the  State 
would  ultimately  have  materialized  in  France, 
270 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

though  probably  more  slowly.  Men  like  Fegny, 
— as  a  careful  reading  between  the  lines  of  his 
Cahiers  will  show, — would  not  have  been  op- 
posed to  it.  Indeed,  Peguy  turned  away  from 
what  is  here  called  Democratism  only  because 
the  petty  personal  intrigues  of  demagogues  who 
posed  as  socialists,  repelled  him.  Although  his 
language  was  mystical,  his  aspirations  were  emi- 
nently practical,  and  he  was  far  from  oblivious 
of  the  importance  of  economic  considerations. 

If  we  should  attempt  to  trace  back  to  its 
origins  the  economic  theory  of  the  State,  we 
would  find  a  most  remarkable  exponent  of  it  in 
Auguste  Comte,  as  early  as  1836.^^  But  we  must 
confine  our  attention  to  works  which  appeared 
immediately  before  the  war.  One  of  those,  at 
least,  deserves  to  be  brietiy  mentioned.  It  is 
Etienne  Key's  striking  little  book.  La  Renais- 
sance de  I'Orgueil  Frangais  {Les  Etudes  Con- 
temporaines,  Grasset,  1912).  Key's  argument 
is  that  the  first  generation  of  bourgeois  after 
1870  were  afraid  of  another  trial  of  strength 
with    Germany:     "It    was    then    that    the    hu- 

13  The  most  lucid  pre-war  exposition  of  the  economic 
state  known  to  us,  is  to  be  found  in  the  last  pages  of 
Jack  London's  People  of  the  Al 

271 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

manitarian  and  internationalist  doctrines  were 
formulated;  the  leading  classes  turned  their 
apprehensions  into  theories  and  into  princi- 
ples, and  their  adhesion  to  pacifism  and  to 
socialism  was  only  a  screen  to  hide  their  cow- 
ardice." But  the  younger  generation  felt  dif- 
ferently; they  did  not  repudiate  the  idea  of 
war,  which  might  be  a  means  of  regaining 
prestige,  and  of  bringing  about  material  pros- 
perity (revival  of  Vorgueil  guerrier).  They  did 
more:  they  developed  a  new  mentality;  they 
became  ambitious  of  regaining  for  France  a 
leading  place  among  the  modern  nations ;  for,  in 
the  future.  Frenchmen  must  cease  to  waste  their 
time  and  energies  in  futile  quarrels  between 
royalists,  republicans,  Bonapartists  and  social- 
ists; they  must  unite  to  develop  a  strong  in- 
dustrial and  economic  organization  (revival  of 
Vorgueil  cconomique) .  Ferry's  colonial  policy 
had  already  shown  that  Frenchmen  were  not 
strangers  to  such  an  ideal. 

The  following  are  a  few  quotations  from  Rey: 
"In  modern  states,  the  soldier  has  had  to  yield 
precedence  to  the  manufacturer  and  the  business 
man  ,  .  .  but  it  is  only  within  the  last  fifty 
years  that  the  conditions  of  existence  have  really 
changed  for  the  people."  The  result  has  been 
272 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS     \ 

"the  'orgueiV  of  figures,  of  big  interests,  of  large 
banking  accounts."  And  while  "there  are  na- 
tions which  have  never  known  any  other," — 
unfortunately  for  them — "economic  necessities, 
the  progress  of  business,  the  widening  of  the 
world-market,  the  prodigious  development  of 
industry,  have  imposed  on  all  countries  this 
new  order  of  things."  Conclusion:  "The 
orgueil  economique  and  the  orgueil  guerrier 
have  just  joined  hands  in  a  same  feeling  of 
national  pride,  and  this  is  surely  one  of  the 
clearest  proofs  of  a  French  national  revival. 
The  problem  of  socialism  is  a  very  serious  one ; 
but  by  forcing  upon  the  world  the  Marxian 
theory  of  history,  socialism  has  proved  to  be  the 
most  useful  instrument  of  the  new  economic 
and  industrial  ideal  .  .  .  ;  without  it,  democracy 
would  have  remained  that  narrow  bourgeois 
conception  of  the  time  of  Louis-Philippe:  a 
republic  of  wealthy  manufacturers  and  land- 
owners. ' ' 

What  of  the  Church  and  the  Neo-Catholic 
movement?  "The  part  which  the  Church  has 
played  in  the  past  has  not  been  very  glorious. 
.  .  .  The  Church  has  failed  for  the  last  forty 
years  to  take  advantage  either  of  the  periods  of 
anti-clerical  politics,  or  of  the  periods  of  toler- 
273 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

aiice.  .  .  .  To-day  the   Church   of   France  is  a 
great  power  running  to  waste. ' '  ^* 

In  1912,  Rey  and  quite  a  number  of  other 
writers  whom  we  are  about  to  mention,  had  re- 
garded the  economic  re-organization  of  France 
as  bound  up  with  the  aims  of  the  Action  Fran- 
gaise.  There  was,  however,  no  necessary  connec- 
tion between  the  Neo-Catholic  tendencies  and  the 
economic  development  of  France.  Indeed,  the 
two  movements  might  prove  to  be  incompati- 
ble; and,  in  fact,  little  by  little,  all  connection 
between  them  ceased.  A  proof  of  this  could 
be  found  in  a  very  significant  article,  "La 
France  et  I'Amerique,"  written  by  Ch.  Maurras, 
in  1895  (in  answer  to  Bourget's  Outre-Mer), 
and  republished  without  change  in  1916  in  the 
volume  Quand  les  Franqais  ne  s'aimaient  pas; 
Maurras  shows  a  profound  distrust  of  America's 
civilization  of  wealth:  "Let  us  by  all  means 
unite  with  Bourget  in  his  admiration  for 
America,  but  let  us  remain  French." 
*         *         * 

Since  the  beginning  of  the  war,  and  more  es- 
peciall}"  since  1917,  a  number  of  books  have  been 
published,  which  show  how  economic  preoccupa- 
tions have  taken  the  lead  in  the  minds  of  inde- 

14  Would  Rey  still  maintain  this  view  after  the  war  ? 
— Probably  not. 

274 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

pendent  thinkers,  have  sprung  from  very  differ- 
ent quarters,  and  have  claimed  attention.^^ 

Let  us  first  of  all  consider  J.  Sageret's  La 
Guerre  et  le  Progres  (1917).  Although  Sageret 
ends  on  the  economic  note,  he  first  discusses 
al)straetly  the  principles  involved  in  the  great 
conflict;  he  keeps  aloof  from  all  controversy  as 
regards  concrete  problems  so  as  to  safeguard  his 
impartiality.  His  work  is  certainly  the  most 
conscientious  attempt  that  has  yet  been  made  to 
look  at  things  objectively;  he  has  no  sentimental 
biases,  whether  patriotic  or  humanitarian;  but 
at  the  same  time,  he  is  strong  enough  not  to 

15  Here  aojain  we  shall  mention  only  such  books  as 
present  clearly  and  definitely  some  original  contribution 
to  the  literature  of  the  war.  That  is  why  we  do  not 
deem  it  necessary  to  dwell  at  length  on  Paul  Adam's 
La  Littcraturc  c't  la  Guerre  I  iniO,  131  pp.),  although 
it  is  evident  that  the  author  had  a  vague  presentiment 
of  tiie  orientation  of  thougiit  toward  economic  doctrines. 
His  book  is  full  of  platitudes  and  repetitions,  with  a  few 
brilliant  passages  which  are  quite  insufficient  to  redeem 
the  rest.  Adam  tries  to  guess  what  the  literature  of 
to-morrow  will  be:  the  era  "which  will  dawn  after  this 
war  of  nations  will  probably  be  an  age  of  cirilisateurs." 
He  has  in  mind  the  economic  ^  development  of  the 
colonies.  He  quotes  books  dealing'  with  Africa,  Tonkin, 
etc.,  and  it  is  evident  that  he  considers  that  some 
writers  have  already  foreseen  a  great  future  for  the 
colonies.  He  quotes^  by  the  way,  a  curious  note  found 
among  Flaubert's  papers:  "The  next  great  social  novel 
to  be  written,  now  that  titles  and  castes  have  been 
abolished,  should  picture  the  struggle,  or  rather  the 
fusion,  of  barbarism  and  of  civilization." 
275 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

betray  the  cause  in  which  he  personally  believes, 
from  any  fear  of  being  unfair  to  the  cause  in 
which  he  does  not  believe.  (Bonnet  for  in- 
stance, in  his  L'Anie  du  Soldat,  and  Remain 
Rolland  in  Au-dessus  de  la  Melee,  have  shown 
that  weakness.)  Some  of  the  chapters  are  not 
easy  reading;  his  style  is  very  philosophical,  we 
might  even  say  Spinozistic ;  but  in  Chapters  IV, 
X  and  XIII,  he  is  admirably  clear,  fearless 
and  illuminating.  He  has  a  happy  knack  of  dis- 
lodging, by  means  of  a  pointed  little  sentence, 
ideas  which  have  remained  in  some  comer  of 
the  brain  by  no  other  right  than  that  of  long, 
undisturbed  occupancy,  and  which  make  a  con- 
siderable difference  in  our  apprehension  of  the 
truth  in  so  far  as  they  prevent  us  from  viewing 
things  at  a  correct  angle.  He  discusses  three 
topics:  the  meaning  of  war,  the  meaning  of 
progress,  and  the  relation  of  war  to  progress. 
The  raison  d'etre  of  the  book  is  manifestly  the 
examination  of  a  thesis  recently  advanced  by 
German  authors,  that  there  exists  an  organic 
relation  between  war  and  progress,  and  in  the 
development  of  which  the  Darwinian  theories 
of  the  struggle  for  life  and  of  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  are  used  directly  or  indirectly  to 
prove  not  only  the  necessity,  but  the  excellence 
276 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

of  war.  Sageret  cannot  see  any  connection 
whatsoever  between  war  and  the  progress  of 
the  human  race.  He  explodes,  one  after  an- 
other, various  theories  which  need  but  to  be 
clearly  formulated  to  betray  their  intrinsic  ab- 
surdity; the  belief,  for  instance,  that  the  victor 
is  always  superior  to  the  vanquished,  which 
rests  on  the  false  presupposition  that  superiority 
in  war  is  identical  with  superiority  itself. 
Elsewhere,  Sageret  shows  that,  frequently,  in 
the  struggle  for  life,  a  species  which  is  phj'sically 
inferior  to  its  rivals  will  survive  on  account  of 
some  peculiarity  which  happens,  accidentally,  to 
be  important ;  and  he  instances  the  case  of  the 
rabbit,  which  being  more  developed  along  cer- 
tain lines,  has  survived  several  species  mani- 
festly superior  to  it  in  many  other  ways.  How 
often  does  climate,  not  ability,  settle  the  ques- 
tion of  survival  between  two  races,  favoring  the 
inferior  one,  and  eliminating  the  better,  as  illus- 
trated by  the  case  of  the  European  in  certain 
tropical  countries  ?  Even  in  war,  the  physically 
stronger  is  not  always  the  survivor.  In  the 
Napoleonic  wars,  the  stronger  were  victorious, 
but  a  large  proportion  of  them  were  killed,  while 
the  bulk  of  the  weaker  sui-vived.  The  same 
holds  true  in  the  present  war.  War  leads  to 
277 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

an  inverted  selection  (ime  selection  a  rehours). 
Moreover,  there  can  be  no  racial  wars  in  Europe, 
for  the  races  co-mingle  in  every  part  of  the 
continent ;  everywhere  there  are  brachycephalie 
and  dolichocephalic  men,  and  many  people  who 
bear  German  names, — in  Alsace,  for  instance, — 
are  decidedly  French  in  their  sentiments ;  thus 
the  Great  War  also  is  fought  not  on  racial, 
but  on  national,  grounds.  ...  In  conclusion: 
"War  is  not  a  scientific  fact,  but  only  an  his- 
torical one  ...  ;  we  could  regard  it  as  a  scien- 
tific fact  only  if,  like  all  other  natural  phenom- 
ena, it  were  invariably  accompanied  by  certain 
effects.  But  what  effect  of  war  can  be  regarded 
as  constant  ? — Selection  ?  .  .  .  But  selection  does 
not  select  consistentl}^  the  same  qualities  for 
triumph.  .  .  .  War  picks  out  the  victors  at  ran- 
dom ;  and  the  victors  have  as  little  right  to  be 
regarded  as  scientific  effects,  as  the  rulers  in 
whose  hands,  accidentally,  the  destinies  of  na- 
tions lie.  It  is  therefore  nonsense  "to  talk  of 
war  as  an  element  of  progress.  .  .  .  War  and 
progress  are  two  unrelated  facts,  not  opposed, 
but  simply  alien,  to  each  other." 

War  as  an  element  of  progress  being  thus  dis- 
posed of,  Sageret  turns  to  the  real  problem  that 
278 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

lies  before  modem  society.  "War  cannot  be 
ignored,  for  it  always  remains  a  possibility. 
That  is  felt  to  be  so  true,  that  the  aims  of 
belligerents  are  chiefly  directed  toward  the  se- 
curing of  favorable  conditions,  not,  indeed,  in 
view  of  a  coming  peace,  but  rather  in  view  of 
the  next  war.  ..."  War  simply  renders  im- 
possible a  rational  exploitation  of  the  Planet. 

What  then  is  progress?  Sageret  adopts, — 
with  modernized  arguments, — the  theory  that  all 
progress  implies  a  corresponding  regress,  in 
sociology  as  well  as  in  psychology  and  biology. 
That  economic  progress  means  an  advance  of 
civilization,  he  accepts  as  a  commonplace,  almost 
axiomatic  in  its  simplicity  and  requiring  no 
demonstration.  But  economic  progress,  like  all 
progress,  has  to  be  paid  for :  it  claims  a  tribute ; 
and  the  problem  that  confronts  a  progressive 
society  is  to  discover  how  one  may  reduce  that 
tribute  to  a  minimum.  And  here  Sageret  takes 
up  the  problem  so  ably  dealt  with  by  Rousseau 
in  tlie  eighteenth  century-,  that,  namely,  of  the 
cost  of  economic  progress  in  terms  of  moral  cor- 
ruption, unrest,  dissatisfaction,  jealousy  and 
war.  This  part  of  the  work  is  less  original 
than  the  rest.  Sageret  simply  applies  to  war, 
279 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

and  more  especially  to  the  present  war,  the  ideas 
developed  a  few  years  ago  in  Hay  craft's  Dar- 
winism and  Race  Progress,  in  Demoor,  Massart, 
et  Vandervelde 's  L'Evolution  Regressive  en 
Biologic  ct  en  Sociologie,  and  in  Capitaine  Con- 
stantin  's  Lc  Role  Social  de  la  Guerre  et  le  Senti- 
ment Naturel  which  is  a  reply  to  the  German 
Steinmetz's  War  as  a  Means  of  Collective  Selec- 
tion. 

*        *        * 

Only  a  very  short  notice  can  be  given  to  each 
of  the  following  books : 

Probus,  La  Plus  Grande  France;  la  Tache 
Prochaine  (1917).  This  book  (crowned  by  the 
"Academic  des  Sciences  Morales  et  Politiques") 
was  regarded  as  quite  radical  when  it  first  ap- 
peared, but  it  has  already  been  outdistanced  in 
constructive  suggestions  and  in  outspokenness. 
The  author's  criticisms  of  the  generally  accepted 
views  with  regard  to  political  administration  are 
strong,  and  when  he  suggests  possible  reforms, 
he  generally  speaks  to  good  purpose.  His  main 
plea  is  for  decentralization;  but  one  cannot  but 
feel,  when  he  speaks  of  future  economic,  rather 
than  political,  reforms,  that  he  has  not  alto- 
gether realized  either  their  possibility  or  their 
importance. 

280 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

The  same  may  be  said  of  Lachapelle's 
L'Oeiivre  de  Demain  (1917)^^"  His  chapters 
on  the  Constitution  of  1875;  the  Ethics  of 
Political  Elections;  Electoral  Reform;  Decen- 
tralization, and  the  Revision  of  the  Constitu- 
tion, are  worth  reading.  Nevertheless,  the  book 
strikes  one  as  an  attempt  to  put  new  wine  into 
old  bottles. 

Edouard  Herriot's"  Agir  (1918)  is  a  collec- 
tion of  articles  by  a  man  of  action.  The  fact 
that  he  deals  exclusively  with  present-day  prob- 
lems and  concrete  needs  rather  than  with  ab- 
stract considerations,  has  led  him  to  regard  all 
questions  from  the  standpoint  of  economics. 
"It  is  of  the  utmost  importance,"  he  says,  "that 
the  sources  of  French  industry  be  developed. 
If  by  a  politique  miniere — distinguished  by  more 
intelligence  than  our  present-day  politics — the 
soil  of  France  could  be  made  to  yield  even  a  part 
of  the  wealth  it  contains,  then  no  hope  would  be 
too  high  for  our  country."  And  Herriot  sup- 
ports his  arguments  with  figures.     In  the  period 

16  Another  work  by  Lachapelle  is  .Vos  Finances  pen- 
dant la  Guerre. 

1"  Herriot  was  one  of  those  who  asked  for  the  creation 
of  a  Paris  Conference  on  economic  problems,  to  supple- 
ment the  work  of  the  Conference  on  Jlilitary  Problems, 
which,  on  ^March  28th,  1917,  decided  upon  "solidarity  in 
military  action." 

281 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of  reconstruction  after  the  war,  "one  law  must 
dominate  all  the^  detail  of  the  plan:  we  must 
make  France  rich."  He  recommends  that  his 
countrymen  study  the  excellent  hand-book  by 
H.  Hauser,  Methodes  Allemandes  d' Expansion 
Economique}^  Then  in  a  new  work  Creer,  pub- 
lished in  1919,  he  continues  his  campaign. 
France  must  be  renovated  by  scientific  methods ; 
for  England,  and  especially  for  America,  he  has 
unbounded  admiration.  Political  prestige  fol- 
lows economic  prestige. 

Victor  Cambon's  Notre  Avenir  is  yery  out- 
spoken. Cambon's  book  is  interesting  especially 
because  it  is  the  work  of  a  professional  politician 
who  has  come  to  believe  that,  in  the  future, 
politics  will  have  to  be  based  on  economics.  He 
finds  in  the  events  connected  with  the  war 
a  remarkable  occasion  to  renew  the  warnings 
given  by  him  so  clearly — and  so  stupidly  ignored 
—in  his  Allemag7ie  au  Travail  (1909)  and  again 
in  his  Derniers  Progres  de  VAllemagne  (1913). 

As     to     Clemenceau's     La     France     devant 

18  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  Herriot  is  one  of 
those  who  have  understood  not  only  the  Rousseau  of 
Romanticism,  but  also  the  Rousseau  of  political  theories 
(of  the  article  on  VEconomie  Politique,  of  the  Lettre  a 
d'Alembert,  and  of  the  Contrat  Social)  :  "The  time  has 
come,"  he  exclaims,  "to  re-study  Rousseau.  Long  live 
the  beautiful  trades  of  France." 
282 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

V Allmiagne  (a  collection  of  articles  which  for 
the  most  part  appeared  originally  in  his  famous 
newspaper  L'Homme  Enchainc)  it  may  be  well 
to  say  a  few  words  in  order  to  dispel  some  mis- 
understandings ;  for  instance,  to  make  clear  that 
"the  Tiger"  \vas  not  really  an  opponent  to  what 
we  have  called  the  economic  interpretation  of 
war  events.  Even  at  the  time  when  Clemenceau 
was  "censeur  parlementaire, "  as  well  as  later 
when  he  became  the  "censeur  de  la  guerre,"  he 
acted  on  the  principle:  let  us  not  tackle  the  fu- 
ture before  we  have  well  taken  care  of  the  pres- 
ent. All  his  hostile  attitude  towards  colonial 
policies  was  inspired  by  this  thought :  France 
must  be  strong  first  in  Europe  before  she  gives 
much  thought  to  economic  development  in  Africa 
and  Asia.  And  especially  where  colonial  expan- 
sion brings  about  quarrels  with  England,  France 
must  be  careful  not  to  ill  dispose  England  whose 
alliance  is  of  first  importance.  And  he  was 
opposed  to  French  politics  in  Morocco  because 
he  feared  this  would  absorb  energies  needed  to 
face  problems  at  home.  To  the  clear  sighted 
this  is  good  constructive  policy  in  the  end. 
Moreover,  on  one  point  he  would  not  yield  at 
any  price :  when  the  honor  of  France  was  at 
stake  after  Casablanca,  he  had  said  "no"  to 
283 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Germany,  and  opposed  the  concession  to  Ger- 
many of  territory  in  French  Congo  in  payment 
for  privileges  in  Morocco. 

Clemenceau's  activity  as  a  journalist  during 
the  first  part  of  the  war  was  consistent  with  his 
previous  record.  He  insisted  on  not  sacrificing 
the  present  to  some  uncertain  future,  and  op- 
posed operations  on  a  far  away  front  which 
might  weaken  action  on  the  western  front.  He 
deprecated  the  Gallipoli  campaign.  And  as  to 
the  fierceness  of  his  attacks,  when  France  needed 
so  much  to  be  united,  that  is  merely  the  applica- 
tion of  Clemenceau's  parliamentary  method, 
namely :  there  are  two  ways  of  acting  as  a 
politician;  either  in  being  a  member  of  the 
Executive,  or  in  being  in  the  opposition  and 
stimulating  the  government  to  act  by  relentless 
criticism:  To  fight  with  the  majority  is  good 
for  lazy  politicians,  and  there  will  always  be 
enough  of  those  who  say  all  is  well  and  who 
court  the  ministers.^^ 

*         *         * 

The  reader  must  excuse  this  digression  about 
Clemenceau.     We  come  back  to  our  topic. 

One  of  the  most  curious  books  of  the  war — 

19  See    the    excellent    chapter    on    Cl6menceau    in    A. 
Maurel,    Six    ecrivains    de    la    guerre    (1917);    and    R. 
Ducray,  Clemenceau   (1918). 
284 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

curious  because  of  the  entertaining  way  in 
which  the  author  deals  with  really  fundamental 
questions — is  Gaston  de  Pawlowski 's -*^  DaJis  les 
Rides  du  Front  (1917),  which  was  written  while 
the  author  was  on  active  service.  Pawlowski 
has  not  only  a  remarkable  talent  for  combining 
sound  common  sense  and  a  vivid  and  pleasing 
imagination,  but  his  criticism  is  always  construc- 
tive. One  of  hi^  favorite  topics  is  the  question 
of  coal  and  oil  in  France  (see  Chapters  XXII, 
XXVI,  XXVII).  Oil,  he  argues,  is  destined  to 
replace  coal;  let  France,  therefore,  protect  her 
oil  fields  in  Algeria  and  Morocco ;  what  would  be 
the  use  of  colonizing  those  two  countries  if  their 
oil  fields  were  to  be  run  with  German  capital 
for  the  benefit  of  German  financiers? 
*        *        * 

Two  men  have  come  to  realize  more  fully  than 
any  of  those  whom  we  have  previouslj'-  men- 
tioned, the  revolutionary  nature  of  their  efforts 
to  turn  politics  into  the  channels  of  economics. 
Their  works  may  lack,  perhaps,  the  conventional 
aesthetic  adornments  that  one  is  wont  to  look  for 

20  He  had  previously  written  an  Essai  sur  la  Quatri^me 
Dimension  in  which  lie  advanced  some  bold  and  interest- 
ing hypotheses,  and  Inventions  ^'ourelles  et  Dernieres 
Moureaut^s.  He  is  a  kind  of  French  H.  G.  Wells,  with  a 
comic  vein  and  an  abundance  of  wit. 
285 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

in  literary  productions,  but  they  are  neverthe- 
less beautiful.  Their  eloquence  is  that  of  facts 
and  figures,  which  they  have  raised  to  the  dignity 
of  art. 

The  first  is  Pierre  Hamp,  who  is  connected 
with  the  Nouvelle  Revue  Frangaise.  He  has 
written  under  the  general  title  La  Peine  des 
Hommes  several  striking  novels  dealing  with  in- 
dustrial problems:  Le  Bail  (the  railroad  prob- 
lem) ;  Maree  Fraiche  (the  fishing  industry),  Vin 
de  Champagne  (the  wine  industry),  since  the 
war  L'Enquete  and  Les  Metiers  blesses.  Hamp 
is  the  apostle  of  Industry  which  he  deifies ;  and 
since  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  has  continued 
his  preaching  with  unabated  fervor.  He  has 
visions  of  labor  as  solving  the  problem  of  happi- 
ness in  the  world  and  especially  in  France.  His 
books  are  well  worth  reading.  With  more  con- 
viction than  even  before  1914,  he  says  in  refer- 
ence to  the  task  of  the  future:  "We  are  face 
to  face  with  this  moral  necessity :  France  must 
be  rich."  And  France  must  set  to  work  at 
once:     "War  is  transitory,  labor  is  eternal. "^^ 

21  Pierre  de  Lanux,  in  Young  France  and  New  America 
(pp.  T.S-SG),  has  given  a  summary  of  the  war  books  in 
which  Hamp  has  developed  those  ideas:  Le  Travail 
Invincible,  La  Peine  des  Hommes,  and  La  Victoire  de  la 
France  sur  les  FranQais. 

286 


PHILOSOPHICAL  rOXSIDERATTONS 

The  problem  which  France  has  to  solve  is  that 
of  substituting'  machiner}'  for  men,  as  America 
has  already  done. 

*         *         * 

But  the  most  vigorous  books — which  could 
call  the  dead  back  to  life — ^are  those  of  Lysis: 
Vers  la  Democratie  Nouvelle,  and  Pour  Re'naitre 
(Payot).  Nobody  doubts  that  the  French  can 
accomplish  anything  that  they  have  set  their 
hearts  upon ;  indeed,  their  very  cleverness  and 
intelligence  have  often  been  a  temptation  to  them 
to  depend  on  those  natural  gifts  for  emergencies, 
and  have  lulled  them  into  a  dangerous  listless- 
ness  which  has  more  than  once  brought  them  to 
tlie  brink  of  the  abyss.  In  the  first  book,  the 
reader  will  again  and  again  come  across  plain, 
crude  statements  of  this  kind:  "We  are  forced 
to  recognize  that  that  mediaeval  and  feudal  state 
{Etat  moyen-dgeux)  which  we  profess  to  hold 
in  contempt,  knows  so  well  how  to  run  a  govern- 
ment that  in  a  few  years  it  has  readied  a  power 
astonishingly  superior  to  our  own.  and  that  to- 
day Germany  has  surpassed  us  in  every  field 
of  industry  and  of  agriculture."  And  Lysis 
will  brook  no  protest  or  contradiction.  He 
marshals  figures,  terrible  figures,  to  substan- 
tiate his  statements.  Shall  France,  there- 
287 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

fore,  adopt  German  methods  of  government? 
No,  indeed!  and  for  this  very  simple  reason, 
that  democratic  governments  have  achieved 
similar  progress  along  the  same  lines;  the  form 
of  government  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  ques- 
tion :  ' '  We  have  a  temperament  and  aspirations 
which  are  our  own ;  the  Americans  are  not  Ger- 
man, neither  are  the  English,  nor  the  Italians, 
the  Belgians  and  the  Swiss."  France  must  do 
what  Germany  has  done,  but  not  as  she  did  it. 

One  falsehood  which  has,  for  many  years,  been 
blindly  accepted  all  the  world  over,  must  be 
stamped  out:  it  is  that  France  is  wealthy. 
* '  France  is  really  a  poor  country, ' '  poor  because 
it  is  undeveloped.  To  say  that  there  is  money 
in  France,  and  capital,  is  also  false.  Moreover, 
"true  wealth  is  not  money;  true  wealth  is  the 
means  of  production,"  and  since  whatever 
French  capital  there  is,  is  very  largely  invested 
abroad,  France  is  contributing  to  the  wealth  of 
other  nations  at  her  own  expense.  What  must 
be,  above  all,  brought  about  after  the  war,  is  a 
new  revolution,  viz.,  one  in  French  "democratic 
mentality. ' '  France  must  get  rid  of  her  political 
leaders,  as  she  got  rid  of  her  "noble"  leaders  in 
the  first  Revolution.  The  nineteenth  century 
has  witnessed  the  taking  of  the  power  from  the 
288 


PHILOSOPHICAL  CONSIDERATIONS 

hands  of  the  titled  nobility,  and  its  committal  to 
politicians;  now  the  twentieth  must  see  that  the 
politicians  are  also  turned  out,  and  their  place 
taken  by  men  trained  in  industr}^  and  com- 
merce." The  fact  that  we  have  to  face  is  that 
economic  wars  are  not  on  the  wane,  but  rather  on 
the  increase ;  and  both  employers  and  employees 
must  unite  to  govern  the  State.  The  reader  will 
easily  see  how  very  different  this  is  from  conven- 
tional socialism. 

The  second  book,  Pour  Renaitre,  contains  a 
similar  vigorous  plea  for  sound  practical  thought 
on  "the  German  progress  and  the  French  decline 
of  the  last  forty  j'ears."  The  alcohol  problem 
must  be  dealt  with  energeticallj'.  Alcohol  for 
drinking  purposes  must  go,  for  it  has  done  in- 
calculable harm  to  France  (there  were,  at  one 
time,  cafes  in  the  proportion  of  one  for  every 
four  houses  in  Paris),  but  industrial  alcohol, 
alcohol  as  motive  power,  must  come.  To  render 
any  fraud  impossible,  industrial  alcohol  must 
be  rendered  undrinkable  by  the  addition  of  in- 
gredients which  make  it  nauseous. ^^ 

22  Some  of  Lysis's  remarks  concerning  the  necessity 
of  getting  rid  of  politicians  were  censored;  enough,  how- 
ever, of  his  argument  was  allowed  to  stand  to  permit 
the  reader  to  pursue  it  to  its  logical  end. 

23  Since  the  war  Lysis  has  published  a  summary  of 

289 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

*         *         * 

Literature  of  this  kind  carries  us  back  in 
thought  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  to  the  days 
when  men  like  Voltaire,  Montesquieu,  the  Ency- 
clopedists, and  the  Physiocrats,  dealing  with 
similar  problems,  brought  about  the  first  phase 
of  the  social  revolution.  We  seem  at  present  to 
be  on  the  point  of  entering  upon  the  second 
phase.-'* 

his  beliefs  in  a  short  book  called:   Profession  de  foi  de 
la  Democratie  Nouvelle.      (1919.) 

24  The  reader  may  know  that  in  Germany  a  very 
similar  movement  is  on  foot  towards  economic 
democratization  of  the  state;  but  with  some  truly 
Germanic  characteristics.  The  book  by  Walther  Rathe- 
nau  is  very  illuminating.  Eathenau  is  the  man  who, 
when  the  war  broke  out,  was  called  to  the  direction  of  a 
most  important  service,  that  dealing  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  raw  material  for  war  purposes  (Deutsche 
Kriegesrohstoffabteilimg) .  He  called  his  book  About 
Thinr/s  to  Come  (Von  Kommenden  Dingen)  and  it  was 
published  1918:  In  the  State  of  the  future  everybody 
will  have  to  work;  no  leisured  class  will  be  tolerated; 
society  will  be  nothing  but  a  huge  economic  organiza- 
tion :  but  there  will  be  none  the  less  a  governing  class, 
and  this  class  will  be  the  Prussian  nobility.  No  room, 
in  the  book  of  the  Jew  Rathenau,  for  such  nonsense  as 
Rousseau's  and  the  French  Revolution's  "peuple  sou- 
verain,"  or  as  America's  "Government  of,  for.  and  BY 
the  people."  The  masters  (Prussian  nobility)  must 
make  to  the  masses  (of  the  Sozial-Demokratie)  all 
necessary  economic,  political  and  financial  concessions — 
and  these  will  be  sweeping — but  they  must  remain  in 
control.  This  arrangement  will  be  perfectly  acceptable 
to  the  masses,  especially  in  Germany,  where  they  have 
shown  their  readiness  to  yield  to  the  discipline  imposed 
from  above.  The  volume  "of  Rathenau  is  full  of  interest- 
ing ideas. 

290 


PART  II 


CHAPTER  I 
POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Hebe  we  have  a  good  harvest. 

Very  few  poets  had  thought  of,  or  at  any 
rate,  given  much  attention  to,  war  before  the 
war.  We  must  however  recall  the  Chants  du 
Soldat  (1872)  and  the  Nouveaux  Chants  du  Sol- 
dat  (1875)  by  Paul  Deroulede,  which  ever  since 
they  came  out,  appealed  to  the  innermost  heart 
of  Frenchmen.  Then,  we  must  recall  also  the 
moving  poem  by  Charles  Peguy,  with  the  ever 
recurring  words,  Heureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts! 
It  was  taken  by  many  as  a  prophecy  of  the 
poet's  own  death,  and  of  the  death  of  his  fellow 
soldiers;  in  any  case,  it  is  a  most  remarkable 
panegyric  ante-mortem,  of  the  soldiers  of  the 
Great  War,  and  some  lines  from  it  will  form  a 
particularly  fitting  introduction  to  this  chapter: 

Heureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts     pour  la  terre  charnelle, 
Mais  pourvu  que  ce  fut     dans  une  juste  guerre. 
HJeureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts     pour  quatre  coins  de 

terre, 
Heureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts     d'une  mort  solenelle ! 
293 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Heureux  eeux  qui  sont  morts     dans  les  grandes  ba- 

tailles 
Couches  dessus  le  sol     a  la  face  de  Dieu. 
Heureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts     sur  un  dernier  haut 

lieu, 
Parmi  tout  I'appareil     des  grandes  funerailles. 

Heureux  eeux  qui  sont  morts     pour  leur  atre  et  leur 

feu, 
Et  les  pauvres  honneurs     des  maisons  pateraelles  .  .  . 

Heureux  eeux  qui  sont  morts     dans  une  juste  guerre; 
Heureux  les  epis  murs     et  les  bles  moissonnes !  .  .  . 

Heureux  ceux  qui  sont  morts     ear  ils  sont  retournes 
Dans  ce  meme  limon     dont  Dieu  les  reveilla. 
Ils  se  sont  rendormis     dans  cet  alleluia  • 
Qu'ils  avaient  desappris     devant  que  d'etre  nes. 

Heureux  les  grands  vainqueurs.     Paix  aux  hommes  de 

guerre ! 
Qu'ils  soient  ensevelis     dans  un  dernier  silence. 
Que  Dieu  mette  avec  eux    dans  leur  juste  balance 
Un  peu  de  ce  terreau     d'ordure  et  de  poussiere. 

Que  Dieu  mette  avec  eux     dans  le  juste  plateau 
Ce  qu'ils  ont  tant  aime     quelques  grammes  de  terre. 
Un  peu  de  cette  vigne    un  peu  de  ce  coteau, 
Un  peu  de  ce  ravin     sauvag^  et  solitaire.  .  .  . 
{Priere  pour  nous  autres  Charnels,  dans  la  collection 
Eve) 
294 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Poetry  lent  itself  particularly  well  to  the  ex- 
pression of  righteous  anger  against  Germany. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  war,  a  good  many  poets 
did  use  thus  the  "eorde  d'airain"  of  their  lyre. 
Some  have  sounded  no  other  note  even  at  a  later 
date.  We  mention  without  comment  J.  de 
Marthold's  Chant  de  Haine,  Reponse  a  Berlin 
(1915),  which  this  poet  felt  called  upon  to  write 
in  answer  to  Lissauer's  famous  Song  of  Hatred 
against  England;  the  collection  of  Lecoq's  Ger- 
maniades:  Eux,  Leurs  Crimes  (1915)  ;  and 
Felicien  Chamsaur's  curious,  elaborate,  and 
sometimes  truly  powerful  L' Assassin  Innom- 
brahle,  Symphonie  Dramatiqne  de  Haine  contre 
Guillaume  II,  Ro-i  de  Prusse,  Empereur  d'Alle- 
niagne,  et  Chant  d'Amour  pour  nos  Moris 
(1914-1917)  composed  after  a  visit  to  the  Hell 
of  Verdun. 

But  the  following  volumes,  in  which  this  note 
of  indignation  prevails  also,  deserve  more  atten- 
tion. They  are  not — it  will  be  noticed — written 
by  soldiers;  but  they  come  from  the  pen  of  well 
known  poets  of  to-day,  who  found  truly  deep 
expression  for  the  great  tragedy. 

The   place    of   honor   belongs   to    Emile   Ver- 
haeren,  the  author  of  Les  Ailes  rouges   de   la 
Guerre    (1916).     The   Belgian   patriot   did   not 
295 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

try   to    conceal   his    passionate   hatred   for   the 
brutal  conqueror  of  his  beloved  country: 

0  cri, 
Qui  retentis  ici 
Si  tragique  aujourd'bui, 
Tu  peux  courir  immensement    de  plaine  en  plaine, 
Car  tu  es  juste,  6  cri, 
Bien  que  tu  sois  de  haine. 

Oftentimes  his  denunciation  of  Germany's 
wickedness  and  madness  has  recalled  to  the 
critics'  minds  the  names  of  the  two  greatest 
representatives  of  high  satire  in  France,  the 
Agrippa  d'Aubigne  of  Les  Tragiques,  and  the 
Victor  Hugo  of  Les  Chdtiments.  The  poem 
Guillaume  II  is  one  of  the  most  scathing  indict- 
ments of  the  sinister  megalomaniac  emperor : 

LeS'Soirs  de  Fete,     en  des  banquets, 
II  s'evoquait 
A  la  lueur  des  candelabres; 
Son  buste  cbarge  d'or     dans  For  etincelait, 
Et  son  verbe  emphatique     et  faroucbe  jongiait 
Ou  bien  avec  son  casque    ou  bien  avec  son  sabre.  .  .  . 

II  paradait  de  long  en  large. 

La  fourberie  animait     son  esprit  puritain; 
II  ordonnait  et  deplorait  la  tragedie 
Du  massacre  eclaire     par  le  rouge  incendie; 
296 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Pendant  qu'il  brulait  Reims,     il  pleurait  sur  Louvain. 
Ses  regiments  f — il  les  dressait  a  coups  de  bottes; 
La  schlague'? — il  la  disait  aprement  patriote.  .  .  . 

He  wanted  La  Gloire, 

Et  dans  un  geste  brusque     il  jetait  son  delire 
Comme  mesure  a  son  empire.  .  .  . 

Et    ses    fifres    et    ses    tambours    et     ses    elairons 

Annonceront 
Que  desormais  surgit     sous  le  ciel  d'Allemagne, 
Pour  la  terreur  du  monde,    un  plus  grand  Charle- 
magne. 

Helas !  depuis  le  temps     que  ce  reve  s'en  vint 

Battre  son  front  etroit  et  vain, 
On  a  pu  voir  deja     dans  I'immense  fumee, 

Son  aigle  noir  comme  la  nuit 
N'etendre  plus  sur  lui 

Qu'une  aile  pauvre  et  deplumee. 

Au  Peuple  Allemand  is  written  in  the  same 
vein,  and  is  a  bitter  railing  against  the  people 
who  have  allowed  themselves  to  be  duped,  or 
misguided  by  their  emperor. 

Dans  I'horreur  et  le  meurtre,     et  la  liaine  et  la  rage, 
Allemagne,  Allemagne,     est-ce  done  a  jamais 
Qu'une  bande  de  rois    emploiera  ton  courage 
A  preparer  un  crime     ou  parfaire  un  forfait? 
297 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Seras-tu  a  jamais     hypocrite  et  brutale 

Et  morne  et  dure,  et  celle,     helas,  qui  n'aime  point? 

Tu  ne  livres  tes  bras    qu'aux  besognes  eruelles. 
Ton  histoire  n'est  qu'egoi'sme  apre  et  profond. 
Pourtant  une  autre  existe    et  plus  grande  et  plus  belle, 
Celle  qui  donne  une  ame    aux  peuples  qui  la  font. 

Verhaeren  was  in  France  with  all  the  other 
refugees,  and  he  remained  there  until  his  death 
(he  was  accidentally  killed  at  the  station  of 
Rouen  while  trjnng  to  board  a  train),  but  his 
thoughts  were  elsewhere: 

Men  ame,  elle  est  la-bas. 
Mon  ame  en  joie  et  en  alarmes, 

Elle  est  la-bas 
Ou  Ton  s'elance,  ou  I'on  se  bat, 

Mon  ame,  elle  est  la-bas, 
Dans  les  elameurs  et  dans  les  armes. 

Elle  est  ardente  et  f rissonnante ; 
Elle  se  cache  et  se  blottit 
En  vos   grands   plis, 
Drapeaux,  qui  promenez  sur  le  monde  la  gloire. 

Mon  ame? — elle  est  deja 

La-bas, 
Dans  la  clarte  de  la  vietoire.  .  .  . 


298 


POETRY  OF  THE  WaR 

The  volume  contains  various  accounts  of  war 
episodes  celebrating  the  bravery  of  the  Belgian 
soldiers  and  people,  e.  g.,  La  Ferme  du  Mar<ds 
d'or. 

Jean  Aicard,  in  Le  Tcmoin,  offers  an  en- 
thusiastic testimonial  to  the  part  played  by 
France  in  the  war  against  Germany:  the  whole 
history  of  the  world  reveals  a  slow  but  sure 
progress  towards  an  ideal  of  good-will  among 
men ;  the  present  war  will  not  stop  that  progress ; 
it  is  only  a  bloody  interlude  in  which  France 
represents  the  Christian  spirit  of  brotherhood, 
justice  and  sacrifice,  against  the  spirit  of  the 
Antichrist  represented  by  Germany  attempting 
to  rule  the  world  by  violence.^ 

One  of  the  most  beautiful  collections  of  verses 
on  the  war  is  Zamacois's  L'Ineffacahle  (1916). 
His  resentment  against  tlie  political  crimes  of 
Germany  is  further  exasperated  by  his  sorrow 
for  the  victims  of  her  atrocious  methods  of  war- 
fare— especially  for  the  weak  old  people,  for 
women  and  children.  The  touching  little  poem 
L'Enfant  is  typical  of  his  manner;  it  tells  the 
revolting  story  of  the  little  boy  of  seven  who, 

1  Le  Sang  du  Sacrifice,  Poesies  dedices  aux  Nations 
alliees  (Textes  francais,  anglais,  italiens)  by  the  same 
poet,  is  of  1017. 

299 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

at  Magny,  Haute  Alsace,  was  stupidly  shot  by 
the  German  soldiers  because  he  had  aimed  at 
them  with  his  small  toy  rifle : 

S'il  est  vrai,  Majeste,     ee  crime  qu'on  raconte, 
Comma  il  pesera  lourd,    le  matin  du  grand  eompte 

Pour  le  debiteur  aux  abois! 
Comma  il  pesara  lourd,     lorsque  daus  le  silence, 
Una  main  posera     I'enfant  sur  la  balance 

Et  son  petit  fusil  de  bois! 

The  graceful  and  kindly  poet  of  Les  Bouffons 
was  one  of  those  who  found  it  very  hard  to 
realize  that  men  actually  existed  who  were 
criminal  enough  to  allow  the  war  to  break  out, 
and  especially  to  allow  it  to  be  conducted  with 
such  diabolical  cruelty.  So,  after  giving  his 
sympathy  to  the  victims,  he  returns  in  closing  to 
L 'Horn me  responsdble : 

Done  \m  borama  pendant     des  nuits  et  des  journees* 

Qui  forment  bout  a  bout     un  grand  nombre  d'annees, 

A  pu  dans  son  esprit,     sans  devenir  dement, 

Entendre  resonner     ces  six  mots  constamment : 

La  guerre?  .  .  .  ou  hien  la  paixf — a  pu  tenir  captive 

Dans  son  cerveau  I'horreur     de  cette  alternative, 

Avee  des  mois  de  oui,     des  semaines  de  non, 

Sans  s'ecrouler  un  soir     au  fond  d'un  carbanon !  .  .  . 

(Et)  la  pensee  alors     obstinement  s'arrete 
Sur  la  seconde  exacte,     absolue  et  concrete, 
300 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

L'instant  mathematique,     effrayant — inoui — 
Oil  eelui  qui  voiilut     eette  guerre  a  dit  oui! 

Comment  resiste-t-il     depuis,  au  cauchemar 

Du  visit eur  nocturne     exsangue,  au  nez  camard, 

Qui  sur  son  lit  royal —     au  camp  sur  la  couchette — 

Chaque  nuit  sans  manquer     vient  s'asseoir  en  cachette? 

Comment  done  put-il  voir     sans  en  devenir  fou, 

Le  spectre  chaque  nuit    le  joindre  n'importe  ou  .  .  .? 

Henri  Bataille's  La  Divine  Tragedie  (1916) 
is  conceived  on  the  plan  of  Dante's  Divina 
Comedia.  It  starts  with  the  "infernal"  reali- 
ties of  war,  in  the  first  volume,  and  was  to  end, 
as  the  war  proceeded,  in  a  song  of  victory  for  the 
"divine"  cause.  There  are  some  fine  poems,  but 
too  much  abstract  reasoning  and  weighing  of 
motives,  and  moaning.  Was  the  poet  himself 
conscious  of  those  defects?  At  any  rate,  the 
work  is  not  completed.  The  gem  of  the  collec- 
tion is  indisputably  the  striking  piece  Le  Nou- 
veau  Christ.  Right  at  the  summit  of  a  hill 
dominating  the  plains  of  Lorraine,  stood  a  cal- 
vary. A  German  shell  was  aimed  at  it,  struck 
it,  but  only  removed  the  cross,  leaving  the  Christ 
standing,  his  arms  raised  in  a  gesture  of  blessing : 

L'obus  vient  de  frapper    un  grand  Christ  de  Calvaire, 

Et  le  bois  de  la  croix     s'ost  volatilise. 
301 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Comme  un  aigle  eployant     les  ailes  sur  son  aire, 
Le  Christ  reste  debout.     Rien  ne  I'a  renverse ; 
Mais  il  est  delivre     du  fardeau  millenaire 
Et  de  son  portement     liturgique  aux  epaules.  .  .  . 

And  now  He  stands  there, 

ce  Christ  inopine, 
Les  bras  soudain  ouverts    et  les  mains  deelouees, 
Transformant  tout  a  coup,     en  haut  d'un  promontoire, 
Son  geste  de  suppliee     en  geste  de  victoire.  .  .  . 

Gloire  a  I'obus  pointe     qui  foudroya  les  Bois. 
Le  monde  est  libere,     6  Jesus !     Plus  de  eroix ! 
En  mourant  a  nouveau     dans  chaeun  de  vos  fils, 
Vous  I'avez  rachete     pour  la  seconde  fois. 

Other  poets  who  could  be  classed  with  this 
group  must  be  mentioned  more  briefly.  Such 
are  Madame  Delarue  Madras,  with  her  Souffles 
de  Tenipete  (1918),2  and  the  Comtesse  de 
Noailles,  who  early  in  the  war  sang  so  vigor- 
ously (in  the  Revue  de  Paris,  March,  1915)  the 
Soldats  de  1914: 

Nul  ne  mourra  jamais    aussi  bien  qu'ils  sont  morts  .  .  . 
Les  mondes  periront     avant  qu'ils  ne  perissent  .  .  . 
lis  mettaient  leurs  gants  blancs     devant  la  eanonnade, 
Et  tendaient  cette  main     de  fiance  joyeux 
A  la  vierge  d'airain     qui  leur  broyait  les  yeux, 

2  Only  the  second  part  of  the  volume  deals  with  the 
war.  In  this  second  part,  the  series  Deuils  rouges  is 
particularly  beautiful. 

302 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Jusqu'a   ce   que   le   jour     sombrat   sous   leurs   pau- 
pieres.  .  .  . 

These  last  lines  are  an  allusion  to  the  famous 
oath  of  the  youn>i  officers  of  Saiut-Cyr  to  go  to 
battle  with  their  white  gloves  and  wearing  their 
plumes  on  their  shakos.  (This  episode  is  told 
in  Maurice  Barres's  Les  Traits  eternels  de  la 
France.) 

Gabriel  Mourey's  Le  Chant  du  Renouveau 
(1916)  shows  in  the  soldier  of  the  Great  War 
the  same  virtues  of  chivalry  and  heroism  found 
in  the  past  in  the  epic  pages  of  French  history : 

Les  mots  seuls  changes,     mais  le  rythme  est  le  meme, 
Et  le  ton  et  I'accent    et  les  voix  sont  les  memes. 

The  French  soldiers  are  defending  a  just  cause, 
drinking  "le  vin  de  flamme  de  la  haine";  and 
the  whole  world  feels  with  them : 

Faut-il,  6  France, 
Qu'il  soit  irresistible  le  desir, 
Dont  ta  beaute  brule  I'amour  et  les  sens 
De  ces  hommes,  qu'ils  eprouvent  autant  de  joie 
A  se  battre,  a  souffrir     et  a  mourir  pour  toi ! 

Then  again,  there  is  Maurice  Pottecher,  most 
of  whose  Chants  dajis  la  Tourmente  (1916)  are 
poems  describing  with  philosophical  comments 
303 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  succession  of  events  from  the  assassination 
of  Jaiires  to  the  descent  into  the  trenches,  pass- 
ing through  the  great  days  of  the  Marne.  In 
Georges  Trouillot's  Gavroche  et  Flambeau-,  the 
idea  of  evoking  in  a  poetical  dialogue,  the  heroic 
Gavroche  of  Victor  Hugo's  Miserables,  and  the 
old  "grognard  de  TEmpire"  of  Rostand's 
VAiglon,  was  better  than  the  execution. 

Soon  after  Edmond  Rostand's  unexpected 
death,  in  the  first  month  of  1919  there  was 
published  Le  Vol  de  la  Marseillaise  containing  a 
collection  of  war  verses  by  the  author  of  Cyrano, 
of  L'Aiglon  and  of  Chant ecler.  The  poems  were 
first  published  in  various  periodicals  (as  La 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  or  L' Illustration)  and 
had  been  inspired  either  by  some  great  events 
of  the  fateful  years,  or  by  episodes  that  hap- 
pened to  reach  the  ear  of  the  poet.  It  must  be 
frankly  owned  that  the  quality  is  not  even  all 
through  the  volume.  Some  poems  however  are 
indeed  worthj^  of  Rostand,  such  as  Cain,  Le 
Crime  de  Potsdam,  L'lle  des  Chiens,  or  the 
Condoleances  (aux  Boches).  Some  of  those 
which  call  for  a  more  delicate  treatment  are 
among  the  best,  as  La  Vitre,  Le  Nom  sur  la 
Maison,  La  Mere.  One  of  the  finest,  perhaps 
the  best,  and  of  the  most  "  Rostandesque "  in 
304 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

beauty  is  called  Les  Ruches  Brulees.  "They" 
biiru  the  hives,  because  "c-'est  la  guerre"  an- 
swers the  oflficer,  "la  brute  allemande,"  to  the 
priest  who  a-sks:  "Pourquoi  me  brulez-vous  mes 
abeilles?"  And  the  poet  reflects:  it  is  worthy 
of  them,  and  it  is  better  that  it  should  be  so; 
they  betray  at  once  their  barbarian  souls: 

J'aime  que  tout  de  suite     ils  aient  brule  des  ruches. 

Then  the  bees  will  go  elsewhere,  and: 

Abeille,  or  bourdonnant     qui  dans  I'azur  trebuches, 
lis  lie  sont  pas  vainqueui's    si  tu  llottcs  encore, 
Dernier  petit  vestige  aile  de  I'age  d'or! 

The  poem  ends  with  this  striking  scene : 

Aux  premiers  jours  du  choc  tragic |ue, 
Lorsque  nos  cavaliers     niontaient  vei-s  la  Belgique, 
On  raconte  qu'un  soir     les  cuirassiers  fran(:ais 
Traversaient  un  bameau  de  Flandres,  je  ne  sais 
Plus  lequel;  et  sur  leurs  chevaux  converts  de  roses, 
Tons  ils  chantaient,      entre  leurs  dents,      a  bouches 

closes, 
La  Marseillaise.     lis  la  bourdonnaieul  sculenient; 
Et  c'etait  magiiifique.         Et  ce  bourdonnement 
De  colere  latine     au-dessus  des  corolles, 
C'etait  I'ame  grondant     sans  geste  et  sans  paroles, 
C'etait  la  conscience,     et  c'etait  la  raison; 
Cela  faisait  un  bruit     d'orage  et  d'oraison, 
Pieux  et  mena^ant,     doi-e  quoique  farouche, 
305 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Calme.     On  ne  voyait  pas    remuer  une  bouche, 
Et  ce  bourdonnement     semblait  sortir  des  fleurs. 
Et  ceux  qui  I'entendaient    eroyaient,  les  yeux  en  pleurs, 
Entendre  dans  le  soir    anx  poussieres  vermeilles, 
Comme  une  Marseillaise     etrange  aux  abeilles  .  ,  . 
Et  c'est  ainsi  que,  purs,     ayant  fait  a  dessein 
De  leur  hjTnne  de  guerre     un  murmure  d'essaim, 
Nos  hommes  s'en  allaient     vers  le  Nord  plein  d'em- 

buehes 
Sauver  le  miel  du  monde     et  mourir  pour  les  ruches. 

The  shattered  cathedral  of  Eheims,  and  the 
remains  of  the  priceless  statues  mutilated  by 
German  shells,  inspired  him  this  sonnet : 


LA  CATHEDRALE 

lis  n'ont  fait  que  la  rendre     un  peu  plus  immortelle, 
L'oeuvre  ne  perit  pas     que  mutile  un  gredin, 
Demande  a  Phidias     et  demande  a  Rodin 
Si  devant  ces  moreeaux,     on  ne  dit  plus  "C'est  elle!" 

La  Forteresse  meurt     quand  on  la  demantele, 
Mais  le  Temple  brise     vit  plus  noble,  et  soudain 
Les  yeux,  se  souvenant     du  toit  avec  dedain 
Preferent  voir  le  eiel     dans  la  pierre  en  dentelle. 

Rendons  grace,  attendu    qu'il  nous  manquait  encore 
D'avoir  ce  qu'ont  les  Grees    sur  la  CoUine  d'or, 
Le  Symbole  du  Beau    consaere  par  I'insulte ! 
306 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Rendons  grace  aux  pointeurs     du  stupide  canon, 
Puisque  de  Icur  adrcsse  allemande,  il  resulte 
Une  Honte  pour  eux,    pour  nous  un  Parthenon ! 


We  now  come  to  a  group  of  four  poets  who 
belong  to  the  generation  which  immediately  pre- 
ceded that  of  the  war.  They  are  considered  by 
the  "jeunes"  of  to-day,  as  elder  brothers.  They 
use,  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  that  new 
rhythm  adopted  by  the  successors  of  the  Par- 
nassians, which  sounds  very  free — but  is  ex- 
tremely^ difficult  to  handle  with  success  because 
it  discards  the  rules  which  preserved  the  very 
perceptible,  although  often  artificial,  regularity 
of  classical  French  poetry.  ...  As  Verlaine 
said: 

De  la  musique  avant  toute  chose, 
Et  pour  cela  prefere  I'liupair 
Plus  vague  et  iilus  soluble  dans  I'air, 
Sans  rieu  en  lui  qui  j^ese  ou  pose. 

The  first,  Fernand  Gregh,  has,  more  than  any 
of  the  four,  returned  to  the  traditional  form  of 
versification.  Some  of  his  poems  come  very  near 
to  classic  or  Parnassian  perfection.  The  volume 
La  Couronne  douloureuse  (1917)  is  divided  into 
"Ire,  lime,  and  Illme,  annee  de  guerre,"  and 
includes  also  a  few  introductory  poems.  The 
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FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

battle  of  Verdun  made  him  understand  all  that 
was  really  involved  in  that  gigantic  struggle, 
and  the  book  opens  with  a  poem  called  Vertige, 
written  during  those  anxious  hours : 

L'univers  hesitant     entre  la  force  et  Fame 
Va  retomber  de  I'lTii     ou  de  I'autre  cote, 
Comine  un  glaive  oscillant     sur  le  fil  de  la  lame ! 
Heures,  instants  de  qui     depend  I'eternite.  .  .  . 

II  est  grand,  il  est  beau     d'etre  le  eoeur  du  monde. 

In  "Juin  1870,"  he  explains  the  folly  of  the 
Second  Empire  which  ended  in  the  catastrophe 
of  the  Franco-Prussian  war,  and  that  poem  is 
followed  by  another  "1910,"  in  which  the  poet 
asks  whether  after  forty  years  of  suffering, 
France  has  not  sufficiently  atoned  for  the  sins 
of  the  Empire. 

Avons-nous  fait  assez,     pour  changer  le  destin? 

What  affects  him  most  in  the  war  is  the 
stupid  desolation  of  peaceful  provincial  France, 
that  quiet,  meditative  France,  which  Jiolds  in 
reserve  and  nurses  profound  intellects,  such  as 
Racine,  Pasteur,  Peguy,  who  later  go  to  Paris 
to  feed  the  brain  of  the  world.  Constantly  he 
goes  back  to  dreams  about  the  "Vieilles  mai- 
sons,"  the  "arbres  paisibles  de  la  route,"  the 
308 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

"pensives  cathedrales, "  the  "doux  carillons. 
.  .  ,  His  poem  on  Senlis  is  exquisite : 

Est-ce  toi  que  j'ai  vu,  Senlis, 
Beau  lieu  qui  levais,  dans  les  lys, 
Le  plus  doux  visage  de  France, 
Est-ce  toi  que  j'ai  vu  meurtri, 
Penebant  dans  I'ombre  un  front  fletri, 
Encore  tout  crispe  de  souffrance? 

Tu  dormais  en  ton  doux  vallon  .  .  . 

Tu  dormais  en  tes  maisons  .  .  . 

Tu  revais  panni  tes  jardins  .  .  . 

Et  soudain  le  peuple  bandit, 
Dans  un  tragique  apres-midi, 
Douairiere,  a  force  ta  chambre !  .  .  . 

Tu  vis,  ivres  de  leurs  exces, 
Defiler  des  casques  a  pointes! 

Cette  grace  dans  la  beaute, 
Get  air  d'exquise  humanite 
Que  meme  tes  maisons  respirent.  .  .  . 
Cette  finesse  des  details, 
Ces  ruelles,  ces  puits,  ces  mails, 
Ces  vieux  murs  moussus  qui  verdissent, 
C'etait  la  fleur  des  siecles!     Mais 
309 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

C'est  cela  meme  qu'a  jamais 
De  toute  leur  force  ils  haissent, 

Eux,  les  barbares  tard  venus 
Qui  rodaient  encor  demi-nus 
Dans  les  sombres  forets  germaines, 
Quand  on  lisait  Platon  chez  toi.  .  .  . 

Pleure  Senlis,  sous  ton  eoteau, 
Comme  le  front  dans  un  manteau.  .  .  . 

He  has  an  admirable  way  of  making  one  feel, 
through  the  mere  sounds  of  his  words,  the  per- 
turbation of  life  by  war.  Read  how  the  ' '  sourds 
tambours"  drum  their  lugubrious  refrain  in  the 
poem  Mobilisation : 

Ces  tambours,  ces  sourds  tambours, 
Je  les  entendrai  toujours ! 

lis  battaient  la  generale 

Entre  les  vieux  murs  de  By.  .  .  . 

Au  eiel  des  nuages  gris, 
Passaient,  roulant  vers  Paris 
Gros  d'une  lourde  tempete.  .  .  . 
Partout  sur  le  territoire, 
— Ces  tambours,  ces  sourds  tambours, 
Je  les  entendrai  toujours — 
Leur  ry'tbme  net  et  peremptoire 
Precis,  rageur,  obstine, 
Partout  avait  resonne.  .  .  . 
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POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Dans  ces  voix  accelorees, 

Dans  ces  ronleinents  mechants, 

On  sentait  Ics  dents  serrees 

De  ceux  qui  quiltaient  les  champs 

Sans  phrases,  sans  eris,  sans  chants, 

Mais  leurs  ames  delivrees. 

Ces  tambours,  ces  sourds  tambours, 
Je  les  entendrai  toujours — 

Et  les  femmes,  au  lointain, 
Dans  un  serremont  de  main, 
Pleuraient,  pleuraient  en  silence. 

Ces  tambours,  ces  sourds  tambours, 
Je  les  entendrai  toujours!  .  .  . 

Dans  un  serrement  de  main, 

L'humble  escouade  groupee, 

Au  detour  du  vieux  chemin 

S'enfoiigait  dans  I'Epopee. 

Ces  tambours,  ces  sourds  tambours, 

Je  les  entendrai  toujours ! 

Then,  when  the  irreparable  has  been  commit- 
ted, the  ruins  accumulated,  hear  the  long  wails 
of  the  Sanglots  de  Pierres.^ 

Henri  Gheon  (physician  of  the  29th  Artillery) 
has  received  due  praise  for  his  two  volumes  Foi 

3  The  reader  should  not  fail  to  read  tlie  poem  on  the 
Victory  of  the  Marne. 

311 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

en  la  France,  Poemes  du  Temps  de  Guerre,  Per 
Patriam  ad  Dominum  (1916).  But,  if  men  of 
letters  may  appreciate  him,  the  public  at  large 
will  follow  him  with  some  difficulty.  He  cer- 
tainly tries  to  think  before  yielding  to  the  furor 
poeticus.  His  Eloge  d'un  Kaiser  is  characteris- 
tic of  his  style. 

Cet  homme  est  grand  et  je  ne  erois  pas  juste 
De  I'abandonner  tout  eutier  aux  satiristes  des  jour- 
naux.  .  .  . 

But 

Bieu  Fa  marque  sur  la  montagne 

Pour  n'etre  plus  un  homme  entre  les  hommes 

Le  jour  qu'il  a  perdu  la  douleur,  puis  le  sens.  .  .  . 

The  Kaiser  disliked  his  peace-loving  father, 
Frederick  III,  and  despised  the  strong  hand  of 
Bismarck ;  and  so  : 

il  s'est  alle  jucher  au  faite, 
II  vit  avec  Dieu  de  plain-pied.  .  .  . 

II  eree  ime  eamelotte,  une  flotte,  une  armee, 
L'lehtyosaure  de  Kiel  et  le  Dragon  d'Essen, 
La  Pieuvre  des  mille  casernes  aux  cent  mille  bouches 

feroces, 
La  Baleine  volante     du  eomte  Zeppelin, 
Et  le  soldat  de  Vaucanson  sous  I'officier  Pithicanthrope. 


312 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 
Ah !  qu'il  se  grise  de  mots  et  de  batailles, 
mais  .  .  . 
Vous  n'etes  qu'un  homme,  apres  tout,  mauvais  homme ! 

Gheon's  First  Series  ends  with  Notre  poeme, 
another  "Diseours  lyrique";  speaking  of  France 
he  says : 

Le  destin  du  monde  est  notre  destin.  .  .  . 
Mais  il  n'est  pas  clos  ton  poeme, 
Et  tu  t'es  trop  ouvert  au  monde  pour  te  refermer 
maintenant.  .  .  . 

0  eoeur  fran^ais,  purge  des  petites  pensees, 
La  plus  grande  sur  toi  descend.* 

Even  more  than  Gheon,  Paul  Fort — who  has 
had  for  some  years  now  the  oflficial  title  of  "Le 
Prince  des  Poetes" — uses  with  excellent  effect, 
sometimes,  the  peculiar  Walt  Whitman  rhythm. 
The  author  of  Les  Ballades  Frangaises  offered  his 
contribution  to  war  literature  chiefly  in  two  vol- 
umes, Poemes  de  France,  Bulletin  lyrique  de  la 
guerre  (1914-15),  and  Que  j'ai  de  Plaisir  d'etre 
Frangais.  He  dedicates  his  "Poemes,"  of 
course,  to  France: 

0  Consolant  genie  de  France,  dent  le  voile, 

*  Some  of  Ghdon's  poems  are  translated  into  English 
in  Lanux's  Young  France  and  New  America  (Macmillan, 
1917)   pp.  130-133. 

313 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Par  transparence,  au  mois  elu  des  jeunes  pousses, 
Et  quand  levent  tant  de  semences, 

Prend  la  couleur  de  I'esperanee. — Et  dans 
L'aube  ressuscitee,  j'ouvre  une  ame  ressuscitee  a  la 
France  ressuscitee. 

To  speak  frankly,  Paul  Fort,  who  did  such 
original  writing  some  years  ago,  has  not  been 
well  inspired  by  the  war.  Here  is  the  last  part 
of  his  answer  in  rh3i:hmical  prose  to  the  mani- 
festo of  the  93  German  intellectuals: 

Les  intelleetuels  Gemiains,  tous  Leche-Bot- 
tes,  ceus  de  Berlin  d'abord  ayant  hurle:     "Non! 
Non!"  d'un  Gueulement  de  Basse  agitant  sa  Cu- 
lotte,  mirent  en  gros  Tas  la  Pluie  d'Aero- 
lithes,  et  I'un  d'eiix  inventant  soudain  la  Divi- 
nite,  Poudre  a  te  foutre  en  Poudre,  6  Civilisation, 
envoyerent  le  tout,  Nom  de  .  .  .  bon  Dieu  sans 
Nona !  aux  Armees  pour  nourir  la  Gueule  des  Canons." 

But,  for  instance,  his  Ode  to  the  Marseillaise  is 
more  readable : 

Chant  qui  ne  laisse  plus  le  tenaps  de  refleehir.  .  •  • 
Allons,  enfants  de  la  patrie — vaincre  ou  mourir. 

II  fait  bonte  aux  blesses,  il  leur  rend  la  vigtieur, 
Et  les  voila  debout,  recombattant  plus  fort ! 
Meme  il  propage  au  sang  une  telle  fureur 
Qu'il  n'est  pas  que  les  morts  qui  ne  se  dressent  encore 
314 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Pour  se  donner  encor  le  supreme  plaisir 

De  retuer  I'infame  avant  que  de  mourir 

A  jamais!  hyniiie  qui  revigore! 

Hymne  qui  ressuscite !  hymne  entendu  des  morts ! 

HjTune  qui,  d'un  seul  coup,  des  ses  premiers  accents, 
Explose,  affranchit  Fair  du  vide:  Marseillaise! 
Qui  devient  I'air  lui-meme  ou  passe  I'ouragan 
Des  ames  entrainant  les  corps  dans  la  fournaise, 

Capable  d'entrainer,  en  les  purifiant, 

Jusques  aux  Cieux  rimmensite  des  incroyants 

Et  que,  pour  en  doter  I'eglise  triomphante, 

Le  Christ  meme  eut  pave  d'une  agonie  plus  lente.  .  .  . 

The  fourth  of  the  group  is  Paul  Claudel,  who 
shared  with  Peguy  the  honor  of  having  had  the 
most  original  influence  on  the  coming  French 
youth  of  France,  orienting  them  towards  na- 
tional traditionalism — Claudel  following,  how- 
ever, more  closely  than  Peguy  the  orthodox 
Catholic  tradition.  Since  the  glorious  death  of 
Peguy  at  the  Battle  of  the  ]\Iarne,  Claudel  holds 
the  field  alone.  He  has  written  comparatively 
little  referring  to  the  war,  but  the  Trois  Poemes 
de  Guerre  (1915)  and  the  Xouvcaux  Poemes  de 
Gnerre  (1916)  are  worthj'  of  him.  There  is  a 
reminiscence  of  Peguy 's  "Heureux  ceux  qui 
sont  morts!"  ...  in  Aux  Morts  des  Armies  de 
la  Bepublique  (Mars  1915)  : 
315 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Heros  qui  avez  ete  verses  en  masse  dans  la  terre 
eomme  le  ble, 

Est-ce  vrai  que  vous  ne  verrez  pas  la  vietoire'? 
est-ce  vrai  que  vous  ne  verrez  pas  rete"? 

0  nos  freres  entremeles  avec  nous,  6  morts,  est-ce 
vrai  que  vous  etes  morts  tout  entiers? 

Debout  freres  entremeles,  et  voyez  I'espace  libre 
devant  nous,  et  nos  armees 

Qui  marchent  par  enormes  bataillons  dans  le  soleil 
et  dans  la  giboulee! 

La  frontiere  que  le  parjure  a  ouverte,  forcez-la  de 
vos  rangs  aceumules ! 

Entrez,  armes  de  la  Justice  et  de  la  Joie,  dans  la 
terre  qui  vous  a  ete  donnee ! 

Ah,  ma  soif  ne  sera  desalteree  et  le  pain  ne  sera  bon, 

Armees  des  vivants  et  des  morts,  jusqu'  a  ce  que  nous 
ayons  bu  ensemble  dans  le  Rhin  profond. 

There  are  beautiful  lines  also  in  Tant  que  vous 
voudrez,  mon  general! 

...  Tous  freres  comme  des  enfants  tout  nus,  tons 
pareils  comme  des  pommes, 

C'est  dans  le  civil  qu'on  etait  differents,  dans  le 
rang,  il  n'y  a  plus  que  des  hommes! 

Tant  qu'il  y  aura  ceux  d'en  face  pour  tenir  ce  qui 
est  a  nous  sous  la  semelle  de  leurs  bottes.  .  .  . 

Tant  qu'il  y   aura  un   Frangais  avec  un  eclat  de 
rire  pour  croire  dans  les  cboses  etemelles.  .  .  . 
316 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Tant  que  pour  arreter  un  homme  vivant,  il  n'y  aura 
que  le  feu  et  que  le  fer, 

Tant  qu'il  y  aura  de  la  viande  vivante  de  Fran^ais 
pour  marcher  a  travers  vos  sacres  fils  de  fer, 

Tant  qu'il  y  aura  un  enfant  de  femme  pour  marcher 
a  travers  voire  science  et  votre  ehimie.  .  .  . 

Tant  que  vous  voudrez,  jusqu'  a  la  gauche!  tant 
qu'il  y  en  aura  un  seul !  Tant  qu'il  y  en  aura  un  de 
vivant,  les  vivants  et  les  morts  tous  a  la  f ois ! 

Tant  que  vous  voudrez   mon  general!   6   France, 

tant  que  tu  voudras ! 

« 

Among  the  poems  more  directly  inspired  by 
actual  fighting,  if  not  also  written  by  actors  in 
the  struggle,  the  following  have  met  with  es- 
pecial favor :  L  'Arret  de  la  Marne,  a  la  memoire 
de  Charles  Peguy,  63  pages,  first  published  in 
the  Figaro,  then  separately.  {Xouv.  Revue 
Frangaise  1916.)  The  poet,  Frangois  Porche, 
belongs  to  the  group  of  the  Noiwelle  Revue  Fran- 
gaise, and  later  wrote  the  play  Les  Butors  et  la 
Finette.  His  panegyric  of  the  heroes  of  the 
Marne  is  divided  into  three  parts,  L' Agression, 
Paris,  La  Bataille;  it  is  written  in  lines  inten- 
tionally abrupt  at  times,  yet  verj^  well  hit  ofiE 
with  original  "finds,"  especially  in  the  first 
part: 

317 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

C'est  la,  dans  I'Oeuvre  des  sept  jours 
Que  nos  vieilles  capotes  bleues 
Sur  un  front  de  quatre-vingt  lieues 
Ont  brise  I'orgueil  des  Pandours.  .  .  . 

C'est  la,  dans  cette  melee  ivre 

Que  fut  sauve  I'honneur  de  vivre !  .  .  . 

Et  si  nous  vivons  sans  remords 
C'est  pareeque  d'autres  sont  morts.^ 

Here,  perhaps,  belong  Paul  Geraldy  (the 
author    of    Toi    et    Moi,    and    of    La    guerre, 

Madame    )    with    Le    Grand-pere,    J  off  re, 

(Poeme  dit  par  M.  de  Feraudy,  a  la  Comedie 
Frangaise,  le  22  mai,  1915,  12  pages)  ;  Lucien 
Broye  with  his  stirring  poem — often  recited  in 
public  gatherings — on  the  return  of  the  vic- 
torious ' '  poilus ' '  to  Paris ;  and  Paul  Rougier, 
A  la  France  (Prix  de  poesie  1917,  in  a  contest 
organized  by  the  French  Academy — 15  pages). 
In  that  poem,  France  is  shown  extending  her 
hospitality  to  the  refugees  and  persecuted  of  all 
nations;  in  other  words,  the  theme  is  that 
France  is  every  man's  seconde  patrie  and  a 
patrie  for  such  as  can  claim  none;  it  is  an  hon- 
est attempt  to  be  vigorous  while  remaining 
* '  academique. ' ' 

5  In  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  for  Feb.  15th, 
1919,  there  appeared  another  poem  by  Porche,  Le 
Podme  de  la  Delivrance,  which  is  not  so  strong  aa 
I'Arret  de  la  Mame. 

318 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

The  inspiration  of  the  war  poets  has  fre- 
quently been  religious  and  some  of  their  works 
are  truly  beautiful.  The  best  known  collection 
of  such  religious  war  poems  is  Louis  ]Mercier's 
Prieres  de  la  Tranchce.  Mercier  had  published 
rather  early  in  the  war,  Poemes  de  la  Tranchce, 
the  first  edition  of  which  was  promptly  ex- 
hausted ;  he  then  issued  a  special  edition  of  some 
of  these  poems  under  the  title  just  given, 
Prieres  de  la  Tranchee  (30  pages).  They  are 
prayers  of  remarkable  simplicity  and  directness, 
in  behalf  of  all,  but  especially  of  the  most 
humble  who  also  help  to  win  the  war:  for  the 
sentries : 

Dieu  tout  puissant,  soyez     en  aide  aux  sentinelles ! 
Du  funeste  sommeil     defendez  leurs  prunellas; 
Que  la  nuit  passe  vite,     et  laisse  ouir,  enfin, 
Le  chant  de  I'alouette    au  retour  du  matin. 

For  the  cooks  (cuistots)  : 

Marthe,  soeur  de  Marie,     6  sainte  menagere, 
Qui  vouliez  rejouir    Jesus  d'un  bon  repas, 
Pour  les  bumbles  cuistots     agreez  ma  priere, 
Et  daignez  etre     leur  patronne:  ils  n'en  ont  pas. 

Debrailles,  marmiteux,    et  de  rude  langage, 
Ils  jurent  trop  souvent     le  saint  nom  du  bon  Dieu, 
Sans  savoir  ce  qu'ils  font,     et  parce  que  I'ouvrage 
Est  dur,  et  que  lo  bois     manque  souvent  au  feu. 
319 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Devant  la  flamme  rouge     on  voit  leur  forme  noire 
S'evertuer  le  jour,     et  maintes  fois  la  nuit; 
lis  font  penser  a  ceux     qui  sont  en  Purgatoire, 
Tant  leurs  yeux  sont  brules    dans  leur  visage  cuit. 

For  those  who  csirry  logs  to  repair  the  roads ;  for 
the  safety  of  the  "cagna"  (the  uncomfortable 
dug-outs  where  the  soldiers  try  to  rest,  pro- 
tected against  shells  while  not  on  duty)  ;  for 
the  peasant  soldier;  for  the  ''Ahsente"  (wife 
or  mother)  : 

Seigneur,  mon  Dieu,  veillez  sur  I'absente  qui  m'aime 
De  tout  le  grand  amour     dont  je  I'aime  moi-meme. 

Donnez  a  ses  matins     un  rayon  de  clarte 

Pour  que  son  pauvre  coeur     en  soit  reconforte.  .  .  . 

Qu'en  se  mettant  a  table    elle  ne  pleure  point 
En  songeant  qu'elle  est  seule     et  que  je  suis  bien 
loin.  .  .  . 

Mais  surtout,  6  mon  Dieu,  que  les  soirs,  les  longs  soirs 
Ne  Fenvironnent  pas     de  pressentunents  noirs ! 

Que  eelle  dont  elle  a    le  charme,  que  la  lampe 
D'une  lueur  de  paix    illumine  sa  tempe  ... 

Seigneur,  mon  Dieu,  veillez  sur  I'absente  qui  m'aime 
De  tout  le  grand  amour    dont  je  I'aime  moi-meme! 

There  are  morning  prayers  and  evening  prayers ; 

prayers  to  the  patron-saints  asking  for  their  in- 

320 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

tercession;  and  a  supplication  to  the  "Divine 
Guest"  to  visit  and  comfort  the  soldiers  in  hours 
of  infinite  sadness : 

Vous,  rami  des  peeheurs,     qui  souvent  vous  assites 
Dans  leurs  barques  fleurant     la  saumure  et  la  poix, 
Vers  la  tranchee  obscure    ou  nous  avons  nos  gites 
Qu'il  vous  plaise,  Seigneur,     de  venir  une  fois. 

N'y  venez  pas  im  jour     qu'on  a  Fame  un  peu  claire 
A  cause  du  soleil     qui  luit  dans  le  ciel  bleu ; 
Mais  plutot  par  un  soir     ou  Fon  se  desespere 
Parce    que    Fair    est    plein     de    corbeaux,    et    qu'il 
pleut.  .  .  . 

Entrez  dans  un  abri    sans  vous  faire  connaitre, 

Et  demeurez  un  peu     parnii  ces  pauvres  gens.  .  .  . 

"VSous  vous  retirerez    sans  vous  faire  connaitre, 

Mais  en  laissant  leurs  coeurs     moins  obscurs  et  moins 

sourds, 
Et  puis  pei-mettez-moi    ce  voeu  tres  humble,  6  Maitre — 
Faites  cesser  la  pluie    au  moins  pour  quelques  jours ! 
* 

Un  Chant  de  Consolation,  by  J.  Bellouard, 
caporal  brancardier  au  314me  Infantarie  (1916) 
is  animated  by  the  same  spirit.  The  author  is  a 
priest.  Maurice  Barres  wrote  an  enthusiastic 
Preface  for  him.  The  reader  will  find  in  these 
pages  a  veritable  Prayer-Book  in  verse  for  the 
Catholic  soldier,  with  hymns,  model  prayers,  in- 
321 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

vocations  for  all  occasions — but  the  reverence  for 
God  is  intimately  associated  with  reverence  for 
the  mother-country. 

Frangais, 
Voyez  la-bas 
Nos  freres  soldats 
Brises    de    souffranee, 

Voyez-les,  vibrants  d'esperance, 
C'est  pour  I'Eglise  et  pour  la  France. 

The  memory  of  Joan  of  Arc,  who  also  suffered 
for  her  faith  and  for  France,  is  quite  naturally 
evoked :  the  Maid  of  Orleans  is  asked  to  inter- 
cede for  France : 

C'est  la  France 
En  souffranee, 
Qui  te  dit :  Jeanne,  viens  a  nous ! 
0  guerriere, 
Sa  priere 
Pleura  humblement  a  tes  genoux. 

Sorrow  and  compassion,  prayer  and  hope — such 
are  the  ever  recurring  themes.  The  warriors  do 
not  forget,  in  their  daily  intercourse  with  God 
and  the  Saints,  the  people  at  home  who  have 
their  full  share  of  anxieties : 

Ayez  pitie  de  ceux     que  nous  avons  laisses 
Seuls  avec  le  fardeau    de  leurs  coeurs  angoisses. 
322 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Ayez  pitie  de  coux     qui  sont  rostes  la-bas, 
Attendant  des  absents     qui  no  reviendront  pas.° 

The  Protestant  creed  in  war  poetry  is  repre- 
sented b}^  Jean  Fontaine-Vive,  His  little  volume 
(108  pages)  is  called  Jeunesse  Ardent e,  Vers  de 
Guerre  (written  in  1916,  but  published  in  1918 
only).  A  Preface,  by  G.  Riou,  tells  that  the 
poet  was  a  ver}^  3"oung  officer  who  earned  his 
commission  during  the  war,  received  the  "War 
cross — then  the  Wooden  cross:  he  sleeps  his  last 
sleep  in  a  little  cemetery  in  Champagne.  The 
title  Jeunesse  ardente  is  very  fitting;  the  poems 
are  full  of  life  and  fire,  and  permeated  with  a 
real,  but  discreet  Christian  spirit.  Jean  Fon- 
taine-Vive liked  to  meditate,  as  the  "Pilosus 
Artif ex ' '  of  one  of  his  sonnets : 

Mais  le  canon  s'eveille     et  burle  a  pleine  voix, 
Et  lui,  senieur  de  reve    en  la  brutale  bistoire, 
Reprenant  I'anneau  elair    entre  ses  rudes  doigts, 
Cisele  un  peu  d'amonr    dans  ee  lambeau  de  gloire. 

He  has  a  noble  piece,  Un  Reve,  about  William 
whom  he  represents  as  watching  his  phantom 
soldiers  of  Verdun  march  past ;  the  reproaches 

6  The  Cinq  Prieres  pour  temps  de  guerre,  by  Franeia 
Jammes,  the  gentle  author  of  Les  Georgiques  chrctiennes, 
must  not  be  forgotten  here.  They  are,  however,  written 
in  prose. 

323 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

which  he  reads  in  their  eyes  fill  him  with  terror, 
and  he  tries  to  take  refuge  in  death.     But, 

II  vit  montant  la  garde  du  trepas, 
Un  soldat  de  Verdun  croisant  la  bai'onette, 
Lui  crier :     On  ne  passe  pas ! 

(Dated,  August,  1916). 

Another  energetic  poem  is  called  Sonate  contre 
Romain  Eolland.  ...  If  only  Rolland  had  died 
after  his  Jean  Christophe! 

Plut  a  Dieu  que  brisant     son  arehet  trop  sonore 
Dans  un  supreme  accord    d'esperance  et  d'amour, 
Le  divin  Jean-Cbristopbe     ait  clos  ses  yeux  au  jour 
Et  trouve  le  trepas     dont  un  peuple  I'honore. 

Mais 

Jean-Cbristopbe  a  rejoint    la  'Foire  sur  la  Place/ 
Son  arebet  fait  danser    d'un  entrecbat  eocasse 
Le  neutre  dont  la  pocbe     a  des  cliquetis  d'or. 

The  poet's  preference,  in  his  songs,  goes  most 
of  the  time  to  his  splendid  brothers  in  arms  (see 
the  Ode  a  mon  Regimetit) .  The  general  inspira- 
tion of  the  whole  collection  is  well  expressed  in 
these  few  lines  from  the  Ode  aux  Moris  de 
Verdun : 

Quand  n'ayant  plus  que  Dieu    pour  unique  esperanee, 
Plus    qu'un   desir,   la   mort,      plus   qu'un    amour,   la 
France, 

324 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Le  soldat  aeeable     s'incline  pour  mourir, 
II  ouvre  lourdement     ses  ardentes  prunelles 
Pour  qu'une  ultime  fois     vienne  s'y  reflechir 
Le  ciel  de  la  patrie     aux  douceurs  matenielles, 

Puis  il  meurt  ou  son  chef     le  met  en  sentinelle.  .  .  . 

*  *  * 

A  place  b}^  itself  must  be  made  for  Max 
Leclerc,  not  only  on  account  of  the  originality 
of  his  inspiration,  but  also  because  the  delightful 
Anjou  dialect  which  he  uses  gives  to  his  poetrj' 
a  flavor  of  its  own/ 

The  little  gem  called  La  Passion  de  Notre 
Frere  le  Poilu  was  first  published  in  the  Echo 
de  Paris,  at  once  gaining  recognition.  The 
"Societe  des  Gens-de-Lettres"  soon  awarded  it 
the  Prix  Jean  Revel,  1916  (au  meilleur  ouvrage 
regionaliste).  It  has  been  since  issued  in  a  sepa- 
rate edition,  with  Preface  by  R.  Bazin  (22 
pages). 

The  poet  tells  the  naive  and  touching  story 
of  a  poor  "Poilu"  from  Anjou: 

C'etait  un  pau\V  bougr'  de  Poilu 
Qui  s'en  allait  sous  la  mitraille.  .  .  . 

Vantie  ben  que  n'aurait  voulu 
Etre  en  aut'part  qu'en  la  bataille; 
Mais  du  moment  qu'fallait  qu'i  n'y  aille, 
Ben,  i  n'y  allait,  tout  simplement.  .  .  . 

7  He  had  written  poems  in  dialect  before  the  war. 
325 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Our  modest  hero  falls  in  an  attack,  and  soon, 
the  wound  being  mortal,  he  passes  away.  He 
bids  good-bye  to  the  comrades, 

Pis,  ayant  dit  son  testament, 
I  rendit  son  am'  tout  doue'ment. 

He  goes  and  knocks  at  the  door  of  Paradise, 
Saint  Peter  introduces  him  before  the  Almighty 
who  is  seated  upon  the  judgment  throne  sur- 
rounded by  his  warrior  saints,  St.  George,  St. 
Hubert,  St.  ^Michel,  St.  Charlemagne,  St.  Mar- 
tin, St.  Maurice,  Ste.  Joan  of  Arc,  and  the  men 
who  have  recently  come  from  the  battlefield. 
The  ' '  Poilu ' '  is  not  a  little  nervous, 

Y  a  des  ebanc'  que  j'vas  ecoper. 

But  he  presents  his  case  in  a  modest  and  good- 
natured  way  to  "I'Bon  Gieu"  and  with  a  good 
bit  of  peasant  astuteness.  The  great  Judge  is 
not  too  terrible  after  all;  the  hearing  finally 
comes  to  an  end : 

Et  voila  que  TBon  Gieu  sourit, 
Et  qu'd'arriei-'  lui  le  ciel  s'ouvrit. 

And,  as  the  man  enters,  he  finds  a  great  many 
' '  Poilus ' '  like  himself : 

326 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Et  I'poilu  s'assit  dans  la  foule 

En  chantant  d'tout  coeur  avec  eux : 
Gloire  a  Dieu  au  plus  liaut  des  Cieux 


The  whole  poem  is  a  marvelous  imitation  of 
the  naive  and  witty  median-al  Contes  Dcvots, 
such  as  those  of  Rutebeuf. 

Leclerc  has  written,  besides,  a  little  volume, 
Les  Souvenirs  de  Tranchee  d'un  Poilu  (1917, 
54  pages)  bearing  the  same  stamp  of  gentleness, 
of  genuineness,  and  of  simple  but  solid  religious 
beauty.  In  his  last  poem,  for  instance,  he 
dreams  of  peace  which  must  come  some  day, 
but  has  not  come  yet:  Quund  sonn'ront  les 
Cloches! 

Via  pus  d'trent'  moes  qu'sus  la  Vallee, 
Ein  soer  d'Aout,  qu'on  n'oubliera  plus, 
Les  cloch's  sonner'nt  a  tout'volee 
Le  tocsin  en  lieu  d'Angelus.  .  .  . 

Trent'moes  deja  qu'on  est  en  guerre, 
Tren'moes  deja  qu'on  est  partis.  .  .  . 

And  then  he  lets  himself  go, 

Et  j'rev'  du  jour  ou  tout'nos  peines 
S'ront  eun'  bonn'  foes  payees  de  r'tour. 

I  pouiTa  s'passer  ben  des  s'maines 
Avant  qu'i  vienne,  I'temps  du  r'tour.  .  .  . 
327 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

But, 

I  vindra  p'tet'  sans  qu'on  y  pense, 
P't'et'  ben  pus  tard,  p'tet'  ben  pus  tot.  .  .  . 
C'est  pour  la  Libarte  d'la  France 
Qu'en  I'esperant  j'payons  I'impot, 
L'impot  du  sang  et  d'la  souffrance: 
On  tiendra  ben  tant  qu'i  f  audra ! 

Tant  qu'i  faudra,  on  I'attendra, 
L'jour  de  bonheur  ou  qu'on  i-'vindra, 
Et  qu'pour  toujours,  sus  la  Vallee, 
Nos  vieux  clouchers,  qu'on  n'quittra  plus 
Chantront  dans  I'soer  a  tout'volee, 
La  bell'chanson  des  Angelus ! 

*  *  * 

The  embarrassment  is  great  now,  when  it 
comes  to  speaking  about  the  volumes  of  plain  war 
poems,  which  are  simply  beautiful,  and  for  this 
reason  require  no  comment  and  no  praise.  It 
would  be  presuming  much  to  claim  that  no  good 
collection  has  escaped  our  notice,  and  even  if 
this  were  the  case,  who  would  dare  to  claim  to 
have  made  the  best  selection?  Nowhere  more 
than  here  would  subjectivism  play  a  part  of  un- 
due importance.  Let  us  therefore  be  cautious. 
It  is  safe,  however,  to  say  that  many  would  cast 
their  votes  in  favor  of  one  or  more  of  the  few 
following  collections:  Julien  Vocance,  Cent 
Visions  de  Guerre  (first  published  in  the  Grande 
328 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Revue)  ;  G.  Champenois,  A  In  glolre  dc  I'Armee 
Franqaise  (crowned  by  the  Academie  des  Jeux 
Floraux  de  Toulouse)  and  Le  Miracle  Franqais 
(with  a  preface  by  Le  Braz)  ;  Gilles  Nonnand, 
Voix  dans  la  Fournaise;  Andre  Alexandre  (a 
worth}'  and  clever  follower  of  Deroulede),  Chan^ 
sons  pour  les  Poilus;  Una,  Poemes;  G.  Apolli- 
naire,  Calligrammes,  Poemes  de  la  Paix  et  de  la 
Guerre  1913  a  1916  (some  may  call  them  dis- 
concerting:, some,  original)  ;  Paul  Verlet,  De  la 
Boue  sous  le  del;  Edmond  Fleg,  Le  .Vwr  des 
Pleurs;  Boyer  d'Agen,  Sept  Paralipomenes  a  la 
Divine  Comedie;  Jean  Suberville,  Le  fifre  de 
Bertrandoiix,  and  La  Fosse  aux  Lions.^ 

Plonge  dans  la  fosse  funeste, 
J'ai  rugi  ces  vers  sans  remords: 
En  souvenir  des  lions  morts, 
Je  les  offre  aux  lions  qui  restent. 

All  that  really  can  be  done  further  here,  in 
order  to  give  an  idea  of  the  general  tone  of  this 

8  For  more  such  collections,  see  yeiv  International 
Year-book,  articles  "French  Literature"  (1914  and  ff.), 
and  Vic,  op.  cit.  pp.  745-750. 

Some  anthologies  have  been  published,  as:  Les  Poetes 
de  la  Guerre,  selected  by  G.  Turpin  ( Fishbacher )  ;  Les 
Poetes  de  la  Guerre,  Recueil  de  Poesies  parues  depuis 
le  1  aout,  191Jf,  selection  made  by  11.  Delorme;  all  well 
known  poets,  such  as  Aicard,  Bouchor,  Dorchain,  Fort, 
Noailles,  Rostand,  etc.  ( Berger-Levrault )  ;  Cinquante 
Pobmes  d  dire,  parus  depuis  le  1  aoiU,  1914  (ibid.),  etc. 
329 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

war  poetry  while  avoiding  endless  repetition,  is 
to  pick  out  two  collections  representing  the  two 
great  types  of  the  Lj^rism  of  the  Great  War. 
The  two  volumes  selected  are  mere  samples ; 
others  might  have  served  the  same  purpose, 
might  contain  even  better  poems.  We  recall 
that  'we  deal  here  only  with  war  poems  by 
soldiers. 

The  first  is  En  ces  Jours  dechirants,  by  Henri 
Derieux  (1916).  The  life  in  the  trenches,  hor- 
ror, death,  victory  ...  is  sung  in  beautiful, 
tlassical  rhji:hm,  in  "style  noble."  It  is  the 
France  of  the  great  writers  which  speaks,  moved 
but  dignified, 

.  .  .  puisque  deborde,     le  torrent  germanique 

A  roule  son  impur  limon 
Jusqu'  au  temple,  gardien     de  la  sagesse  antique 

Qu'ont  bati  les  Francs  au  beau  nom. 

The  struggle  against  the  Teutonic  hordes  is 
hard  and  will  be  long ;  but  this  struggle  will  once 
more  bring  before  the  world  the  heroic  virtues  of 
the  French  people : 

Le  labeur  est  dur  et  s'aehame, 
On  fait  violence  au  destin. 
Mais  pareil  aux  jours  de  la  Mame 
Nous  attendons  le  clair  matin. 
Oil,  brisant  le  moule,  orgueilleuse, 
330 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Du  fond  de  la  fosse  boueuse, 
A  DOS  yeux  ravis  surgira, 
Faite  de  vertige  et  de  glaise 
Une  Sainotlirace  frangaise 
Dont  I'elan  nous  consolera. 

With  Derieux,  it  is  a  theory  that  poetry  ought 
not  to  allow  its  rhythm  of  beauty  to  yield  to  the 
ugliness,  madness,  and  barbarity  suggested  by 
war  and  its  chaos.  Derieux  wishes  to  be  "par- 
nassian,"  "impeccable."  Who  would  not  be 
reminded  of  Theophile  Gautier,  for  instance,  in 
this  description  of  the  battlefield? 

Les  bois,  printannieres  retraites 

Ou  nous  songions, 
Ne  montrent  plus  que  des  squelettes 

Ou  des  moignons. 

Les  maisons  font  des  tas  de  platre 

Affreux  a  voir. 
Regardez  la  place  de  I'atre 
I         Marquee  de  noir. 

Pas  un  lieu  qui  n'ait  erie  grace. 

En  vain  d'ailleurs! 
Partout  le  laboureur  fait  place 
Au  fossoyeur. 

Still  the  soldier  of  France  is  willing  to  forget 
all  this  if, 

331 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Oubliant  la  nuit  etemelle, 

Et  le  tombeau, 
II  voit  la  victoire  fidele, 

A  son  drapeau. 

Let  us  add  that  Derieux  is  anxious  that  his 
judgment,  as  well  as  the  form  of  his  poems, 
should  remain  unaffected  by  the  violence  of  the 
feelings  which  the  conduct  of  the  Germans  has 
stirred  up.  If  there  was  ever  anything  good  in 
Germany,  that  good  it  is  still  legitimate  to 
cherish.     And  he  writes  (VII)  : 

D'autres  ont  dit :     C'est  I'heure    ou  I'esprit  se  delivre 
Du  joug  abhorre  d'Outre-Rhin, 

Et  leur  main  vous  cbassait     de  la  cite  du  livre 
Divinites  du  ciel  germain.  .  .  . 

He,  Derieux,  he  will  not  give  up  Goethe,  "pur 
amant  de  la  divine  regie,"  Kant  "aux  ferules 
de  fer,"  Heine  "au  coeur  d 'enfant,"  Nietzsche 
''au  regard  d'aigle,"  *'Vous  Beethoven — et  toi, 
Wagner!" « 


In  contrast  to  Derieux,  we  take  Henry- 
Jacques  and  his  volume  Nous!  .  .  .  de  la  guerre, 
Poemes   (1918).     He  does  try  to  make  poetical 

9  There  are  two  poets  by  tlie  name  Derieux ;  the  other 
wrote  the  Livre  d'Heures  de  la  Guerre    (1918). 
332 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAK 

capital  out  of  ugliness,  tragic  horror,  atrocious 
war-scenery.  He  has  been  described  quite  ap- 
propriately by  Vidal  (in  the  Preface  to  the 
book)  as  "  a  coup  sur  le  Barbusse  de  la  poesie 
nee  de  la  crise  epouvantable,  qui  en  prose,  donna 
Le  Feu."  To  Henry-Jacques  the  careful  art  of 
polishing  the  line  when  he  wants  to  express  the 
depths  of  his  shocked  soul,  seems  absurd;  the 
terrible  beauty  of  war  is  in  the  expression  of  the 
spontaneous,  disorderly  emotion.  The  descrip- 
tion of  Vidal  is  excellent,  and  we  borrow  it  from 
him:  "Chez  lui  le  vers  jaillit  d'un  bond,  tel 
un  sanglier,  du  taillis  des  sentiments;  la  rime 
fait  ce  qu'elle  pent,  homophonique  a  peine, 
bardie,  se  riant  de  la  consonne  d'appui,  du  plaisir 
de  I'oeil,  de  la  fratemite  des  singuliers  et  des 
pluriels;  la  regie  de  I'e  muet  se  voit  negligee,  le 
decompte  des  syllabes  dans  une  mesure  est 
anarchique,  encore  que  certains  alexandrins 
chantent  selon  les  codes  avee  une  largeur  toute 
classique;  la  cesure  souvent  a  point,  quelquefois 
trebuche;  au  vrai  notre  poete  pratique  le  vers 
libre,  mais  prouve  sa  connaissance  des  prosodies 
traditionnelles."  To  sum  up,  if  the  Victoire  de 
Samothrace  of  the  Louvre  is  the  Muse  of 
Derieux,  Rude's  disheveled  Marseillaise  on  the 
Arc  de  I'Etoile  is  that  of  Henry-Jacques. 
333 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Although  all  the  poems  of  Henry-Jacques  are 
perhaps  not  equally  striking,  most  of  them  have 
a  remarkable  power: 

La  Tranchee  vide, 
De  la  mort,  des  haillons,  de  la  crasse  .  .  .  voila : 
C'est    sale    et   c'est   triste. 

Berceuse, 
Dors  mon  gars,  dors  eomme  une  brute, 
Dors  sur  la  paille  sans  remords, 
Pareil  aux  morts. 

L'obus  passe  .  .  .  qa  ne  fait  rien. 
Uobus  cbante :  do,  soldat,  do, 

Dors  mon  gars,  do.  .  .  . 

Complainte, 
C'est  a  mon  tour  d'etre  touehe, 
Cocbon  d'obus  qui  m'a  couehe. 
Le  long  de  mon  ecbine 
Du  sang  cbaud  degouline; 
Cocbon  d'obus  qui  m'a  couebe 
C'est  a  mon  tour  d'etre  touebe. 

Autour  de  moi  I'on  va,  I'on  meurt 
Sous  un  eiel  gonfle  de  elameurs, 
Decbire  de  rafales, 
De  cbocs,  de  cris,  de  rales, 
Sous  un  ciel  gonfle  de  elameurs 
Autour  de  moi,  I'on  va,  I'on  meurt. 


334 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

J'ai  soif !     Dans  mon  l)idon  plus  d'eau, 

J'ai  I'enfei"  qui  court  sous  ma  peau. 

Ah,  dans  ma  gorge  soclie 

Sentir  couler  la  i'raiche ! 

L'enfer  galope  sous  ma  peau, 

Et  mon  bidon  qui  n'a  plus  d'eau.  .  .  . 

H.    moins    5.     (IIow    the    soldier    feels    five 
minutes  before  going  over  the  top.) 

Regarde  en  toi-meme  un  peu, 

Sois  plus  gTand  de  te  connaitre. 

De  ta  guenille  va  naitre 

Comme  une  espece  de  Dieu. 

Regarde  autour,  dans  la  fosse 

Tes  copains,  Fardeur  aux  yeux, 

Leur  front  jusqu'au  ciel  se  hausse 

De  sentir  la  mort  sur  eux. 

Voici  que  la  mort  vient,     silence  jeunes  hommes. 

Ecoutons-la  venir    dans  le  jour   ou  nous  sommes, 

Regardons-nous  encore    et  donnons-nous  les  mains, 

Car  lesquels,  mes  amis,   seront  vivants  demaiu.  .  .  . 

Qiielquepart   (The  soldier  has  gone  over  the 
top). 

Le  eoeur  battant,  le  cerveau  fou, 
Je  me  suis  jete  dans  un  trou 
Sous  la  boule  froide  des  balles. 
Je  ne  sals  meme  plus  oii  je  suis. 
On  m'a  dit :     Pars — je  suis  parti 
Comme  on  se  jette  dans  un  puits. 
335 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Autour  de  moi,  les  eamarades 

— Je  ne  sais  plus  eombien — couraient, 

Hurlaient,  tiraient; 

Devant  moi,  je  ne  sais  plus  Men, 

La  ligne  ardente  des  copains 

S'est  mise  a  fondre  soudain.  .  .  , 

Neuf,  sejot,  cinq,  quatre, 

Et  puis  encor 

Deux  autres  que  je  vols  s'abattre; 

Et  puis  un  autre  encor 

Qui  s'assied,  epuise,  mort. 

Et  me  voici, 

Tout  seul  dans  la  foumaise  et  la  fumee, 

Debout,  ne  sachant  pas  comment, 

Mais  vivant.  .  .  . 

See  also,  Amour,  Ora)ison  funehre,  Le  canon,  Le 
charnier,  Stars  and  Stripes}'^ 

10  As  to  the  "Chansons  de  guerre" — which  stand  out- 
side the  province  of  this  study — let  us  recall  only  that 
the  most  notable  author,  of  course,  has  been  Theodore 
Botrel  (often  called  "Barde  de  Tarmee,"  "Laureat  des 
tranchees,"  "Chantre  de  Rosalie")  with  his  Chants  du 
Bivouac  (1  aout,  1914  au  31  decembre,  1914),  and 
Chansons  de  Route  (53  songs,  34  with  music).  Also 
Montehus,  Chants  de  la  Grande  Guerre  (1915).  The 
Chants  du  Soldat,  by  Paul  Deroulede,  have  been  taken 
up  again.  Among  other  collections  to  be  mentioned  are, 
Chants  du  Sold-at,  1525-1915;  Autres  Chants  du  Soldat 
( Chansons  populaires,  Chants  de  Route,  Chants  his- 
toriques  et  militaires) ,  both  collections  edited  by  R. 
Sauvresis ;  and  Les  Chansons  de  la  Guerre, — all  published 
by  Berger-Levrault.  Chants  de  Guerre  des  Enfants  de 
France  {Cantiques,  Rondes  et  Chansons),  collected  by 
Jean  Vezere.  Hy nines  et  Chants  Nationatix  des  Allies 
(Hachette)  ;  and  an  excellent  one,  quite  comprehensive, 
336 


POETRY  OF  THE  WAR 

Marches  et  Chansons  des  Sohlats  de  France,  by  Jouvin, 
Gillet,  Vidal  et  Pculcvey,  edited  by  Plon,  1919. 

One  might  call  attention  to  a  revival  of  the  French 
chanson  in  tlie  evening  gatherings  of  the  cafes  (of  which 
the  American  cabaret  is  a  regrettable  imitation).  On 
this  subject,  consult  an  excellent  article  in  l/Opinion, 
by  Ernest  Charles,  Le  Caveau  et  les  Theatres  des  Chan- 
sons (10  fevrier,  1917).  Touny  Lerys,  in  Mercure  de 
France  IG  fevrier,  1919,  writes  on  Quelques  Expres- 
sions de  I'Ame  Populaire  pendant  VOccupation  Alle- 
inunde;  La  chanson. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

The  theater  is  one  of  the  best  means  of  in- 
fluencing public  opinion.  Thus  one  might  have 
expected  that  the  theater  would  play  a  foremost 
part  during  the  war.     It  seldom  did. 

The  best  war-plays,  indeed,  were  written  be- 
fore 1914.  There  are  especially  two  spy  dramas : 
One  is  Lavedan's  Servir,  in  two  acts,  given  al- 
most on  the  eve  of  the  war,  in  1913 ;  a  prophetic 
play  truly.  And  the  other  is  Kistemaeker's  La 
Flamhee  (known  in  English  speaking  countries 
under  the  title  The  Spy)  which  has  more  action, 
more  spectacular  drama  in  it,  but  which  is  not, 
more  deeply  patriotic  than  Servir.  To  show 
how  well,  even  before  the  war,  some  men  in 
France  had  not  only  foreseen  what  was  com- 
ing, but  had  well  anticipated  the  courageous 
attitude  of  the  French  during  the  war,  let  us 
quote  just  one  short  passage  from  Lavedan's 
play. 

Colonel  Eulin  discusses  with  Madame  Eulin 
338 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

the  military  profession  of  their  three  sons,  one 
of  whom  has  just  been  reported  killed  in  the 
colonies : 

Eulin.  The  soldier  is  a  man  apart.  I  have  often 
told  you  so.  Accident  is  his  opportunity,  and  catas- 
trophe his  glory.  Every  danger  which  threatens  him 
is  a  privilege;  every  evil  which  befalls  him  makes  him 
greater.  Therefore  if  we  are  to  rise  to  the  level  of 
those  marks  of  honor,  we  are  to  train  our  sons  to  every 
loftier  sentiment.  Since  we  have  sons  who  are  above 
llie  crowd  of  ordinary  mortals,  let  us,  tlieir  parents, 
show  ourselves  worthy  of  them. 

Madame  Eulin.  How  lightly  you  speak  of  the  fate  of 
your  children. 

Eulin.  No,  not  lightly.  But  I  must  say  that  when 
I  think  of  the  possible  death  of  some  member  of  my 
family,  it  never  strikes  me  as  a  calamity  if  I  am  sure 
that  it  will  be  beautiful. 

Madame  Eulin.  Parents  know  of  no  beautiful  deaths 
of  children. 

Eulin.  Some  deaths  are  splendid  .  .  .  and  they  are 
necessary. 

Madame  Eulin.  Why  necessary? 
Eulin.  To  prevent  ugly  ones — or  to  redeem  them. 
Be  prouder;  bear  your  grief  with  raised  head.  .  .  . 
What  really  matters  is  not  that  one  should  live  or  die, 
but  that  one  should  die  well.  If  I  should  die  of  dis- 
ease, you  may  mourn  if  you  wish,  but  if  I  fall  with 
a  buUet  through  my  forehead,  I  forbid  you  to  show 
any  grief. 


339 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

From  1914  to  1915,  attempts  were  made  to 
echo  on  the  stage,  as  in  the  other  domains  of 
literature,  the  indignation  against  Germany's 
barbarism.  In  Noziere's  Priere  dans  la  Nuit,  a 
loyal  French  woman  of  the  invaded  territory, 
who  has  married  a  naturalized  German,  dis- 
covers that  she  has  given  her  love  to  a  traitor, 
and  she  stabs  him  before  he  has  time  to  do  more 
harm.  La  Kommandantur ,  by  Fronson  (the 
Belgian  author  of  the  famous  Mademoiselle 
Beulemans)  is  a  painful  description  of  the  con- 
ditions in  Belgium  under  German  rule ;  it  pre- 
sents the  story  of  the  return  to  Brussels  of  a 
German  officer  whose  love  had  been  spumed  by  a 
Belgian  girl  and  who  takes  a  cowardly  ven- 
geance by  having  the  fiance  of  the  young  woman 
shot ;  he  also  tries  to  force  her ;  but  she  kills  him. 
A  third  play  of  the  same  order  is  that  of 
Soulie  (1916),  called  1914  a  1937:  a  boy,  an 
"enfant  du  crime,"  son  of  a  French  woman  of 
Northern  France  and  of  a  German  soldier  of  the 
Great  War,  meets  his  father  in  1937  and 
strangles  him. 

It  soon  became  clear  that  the  public  did  not 

care  for  such  performances:  one  may  bear  to 

read  about  such  things,  but  one  does  not  like  to 

see  them  acted.     This  kind  of  play,  therefore, 

340 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

ceased  to  be  produced ;  ^  and  it  is  worthy  of 
note  that  the  best  one  of  them,  though  written 
in  the  earlier  days  of  the  war,  was  not  acted 
until  1919,  when  a  translation  of  it  was  pre- 
sented at  Springfield,  IMass.,  and  then  in  New 
York.  We  refer  to  Maeterlinck's  Le  Bourgnies- 
tre  de  Stilenionde.  Maeterlinck  refrains  from 
any  jingoism  and  his  restraint  adds  to  the  force 
of  the  play.  The  subject  is  the  atrocious  act  of 
''the  most  humane  of  the  German  officers,"  who 
has  the  Burgomaster  of  Stilemonde  shot  under 
the  pretext  of  reprisal,  but  probably  with  the 
purpose  of  terrorization.-  A  German  officer  had 
been  assassinated  in  the  town,  and  the  evidence 
clearly  pointed  to  one  of  his  own  men  who  hated 
him,  as  author  of  the  act.  The  Burgomaster  is 
a  splendid  figure ;  he  refuses  to  allow^  one  of  his 
gardeners  who  was  plainly  innocent  to  be  shot; 
he  also  refuses  the  offers  of  others  wlio  want  to 
die  in  his  place,  while  the  Germans  just  shrug 
their  shoulders  at  what  appears  to  them  a  ridic- 
ulous piece  of  sentimentality.  The  Burgomas- 
ter accepts  his  fate  courageously,  although  in 

1  For  the  two  sides  of  the  argument  see  Brisson's 
article  on  the  Kommandantur  in  his  Theatre  pendant  la 
guerre  (1918)  pp.  52-Gl.  J.  F.  Fronson  presents  his 
own  case. 

2  Such  a  case  actually  occurred  at  Aershot. 

S41 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

despair  because  he  leaves  behind  a  very  young 
boy,  and  also  a  daughter  who  had  married  a 
German  lieutenant.  The  latter  had  left  Stile- 
monde  on  the  eve  of  the  war,  but  had  returned 
to  his  adopted  town  at  the  head  of  his  victorious 
soldiers;  when  he  shows  himself  unable  or  un- 
willing to  save  his  father-in-law,  he  is  rejected 
with  scorn  by  the  wife. 

Less  unwelcome  than  the  actual  ''atrocity 
plays"  during  the  first  winter  of  the  war,  was 
the  dramatization  of  Maurice  Barres's  Colette 
Baudoche.  It  may  be  due  to  the  excellence  of 
the  play  itself  or  to  the  fact  that  the  good  cause 
was  upheld  without  gruesome  scenes,  or  again 
to  the  fact  that  the  problem  of  Alsace-Lorraine 
was  too  near  the  heart  of  all  Frenchmen  to  be 
ignored  on  the  stage  .  .  .  Paris  seemed  pleased 
to  hear  Colette  make  it  so  plain  why,  after  forty 
years  of  annexation,  there  still  could  be  no  sjtu- 
pathy  between  the  conquered  and  the  conqueror. 


Perhaps  while  waiting  for  more  satisfactory 
war  plays,  the  managers  tried  various  revivals 
of  former  War-classics,  like  Corneille's  Horace, 
Sardou's  Patrie,  Bornier's  La  Fille  de  Boland 
(which  had  in  1875  stirred  up  France  still  de- 
342 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

pressed  by  the  defeat  of  1870)  ;  also  the  once 
very  popular  drama  which  had  filled  with  en- 
thusiasm the  patriots  of  1848,  Marceau,  ou  les 
Enfants  de  la  RcpubUque;  and  even  the  play 
from  Dumas 's  lively,  novel  La  Jeunesse  des 
Mousquetaires.  Then  also,  Erkman-Chatrian's 
delightful  ALsatian  play  L'Ami  Fritz.  Some- 
times they  took  up  plays  of  the  past  which  would 
offer  a  relaxation  from  the  nervous  tension,  such 
as  A.  France's  Le  Crime  de  Sylvestre  Bonnard, 
Meilhac  et  Halevy's  Tricoche  et  Cacolet,  and  the 
abundant  and  ever  acceptable  repertoire  of 
Moliere.^ 

One  of  the  most  successful  of  these  "reprises" 
was  Kistemaeker's  La  Flamhee.  In  1918,  how- 
ever, this  author  gave  a  new  spy-play,  Un  Soir 
au  Front,  in  which  a  rather  interesting  attempt 
was  made  to  define  the  Honor  of  the  French  sol- 
dier as  contrasted  with  the  German  Military 
Duty.  But,  while  some  situations  are  very 
strong,  the  play  is  encumbered  with  theoretical 
discussions  which  are  clearly  not  what  the  public 
looks  for  in  a  war  drama :  A  French  woman 
has  married  a  German  who  had  been  naturalized, 
and  who,  when  the  war  broke  out,  had  been  forty 

3  Zola's   L'Assomoir  was   also   revived   on    the   stage; 
probably   to   support    the    Government's   eflForts   to   deal 
energetically  with  the  alcohol  question. 
343 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

years  in  the  country.  He  was  a  captain  of  the 
French  army;  but  almost  immediately  after  the 
outbreak  of  hostilities  he  had  been  reported  miss- 
ing. He  had  passed  into  the  German  lines,  but 
came  back  from  time  to  time  in  his  French  uni- 
form for  the  purpose  of  spying.  One  night 
his  wife,  who  had  returned  to  her  dilapidated 
residence,  now  used  as  military  quarters,  met 
him — and  guessed  the  truth.  Although  his  be- 
havior and  person  inspired  her  with  scorn  and 
horror,  she  asked  an  officer  whose  life  she  had 
saved,  and  who  knew  the  situation,  to  spare  the 
traitor  for  her  sake.  Her  request  is  heeded ;  but 
nevertheless  the  spy  does  not  escape  his  deserved 
fate. 

Really  only  one  play,  written  directly  under 
the  inspiration  of  the  war  and  during  the  war, 
and  written  in  the  tradition  of  the  French 
theater  of  the  last  forty  years,  achieved  genuine 
success.  This  is  Bernstein's  Elevation  (pre- 
sented for  the  first  time  in  June,  1917).  The 
idea  of  the  drama, — regeneration  by  the  war  of 
a  man  of  purely  worldly  ideals — had  already 
by  that  time  -been  often  discussed.  And  some 
critics  seem  to  have  been  angry  because  they 
were  stirred  in  spite  of  themselvs  by  so  common- 
place a  theme;  yet  they  could  not  deny  being 
344 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

moved.  An  idea,  though  not  original,  may  none 
the  less  be  beautiful;  and  the  very  fact  that 
Bernstein  succeeded  in  moving  deeply  with  a 
trite  theme,  is  a  distinct  testimony  to  the  power 
of  his  art.  L' Elevation  was  written  in  an  hos- 
pital at  Saloniki  while  the  author  was  recovering 
from  a  wound; — he  had  served  in  the  aviation 
corps. 

*         *         * 

The  plays  mentioned  above  were  rather  am- 
bitious in  so  far  as  the  authors  seem  to  have 
aimed  at  writing  regular,  lasting  plays  on  the 
ephemeral  subject  of  the  war.  Such  authors, 
who  wrote  in  keeping  well  in  mind  that  they 
were  catering  to  a  public  laboring  under  very 
special  conditions,  succeeded  better.  There  is 
really  a  good  crop  of  what  they  call  in  French 
"pieces  de  circonstances. " 

Some  are  written  in  a  light  and  cheerful  mood. 
Some  are  of  the  serious  kind. 

The  following  belong  to  the  first  group: 
L 'Impromptu  du  Paquetage,  in  one  act,  a  deli- 
cate sketch  by  Maurice  Donnay.  The  stage  rep- 
resents an  office  for  war-relief,  to  which  come 
various  callers  from  the  humbler  classes;  they 
tell  their  touching  and  often  heroic  tales  of  self- 
sacrifice  on  the  altar  of  the  mother  country 
345 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

.  .  .  ;  we  may  mention  here,  by  the  same  author, 
Le  Theatre  aux  Arrnees  (1917),  a  play  to  be 
performed  before  the  soldiers  at  the  front. 
Players  are  discussing  which  would  be  the  best 
topic  for  such  a  representation,  and  this  discus- 
sion quite  naturally  introduces  many  pleasant 
appreciations  of  the  soldiers'  virtues, — and  the 
actors  decide  to  go  on  the  stage  and  present  just 
that  discussion;  Les  Deux  Gloires,  by  Pierre 
Wolf  (published  for  the  first  time  in  the  An- 
nates, July,  1916) — "les  deux  gloires"  being  the 
veteran  of  1870-71,  and  the  "Poilu"  of  1914  (a 
pretty  love  episode  is  woven  into  the  play)  ;  Le 
Poilu,  Comedie-operette,  in  two  acts,  by  M. 
Hennequin  and  P.  Veber,  music  by  H.  M.  Jac- 
quet — is  a  very  bright  and  graceful  vaudeville. 
A  young  soldier  falls  in  love  with  his  "mar- 
raine"  just  from  reading  the  letters  she  sends  to 
the  trenches.  He  comes  to  Paris ;  complications 
arise;  but  all  ends  well. 

Among  the  occasional  plays  in  more  serious 
mood,  let  us  mention  the  following  few:  Le 
Gars,  a  beautiful  little  dialogue  in  verse,  by 
Zamacois,  which  came  out  first  in  L' Illustra- 
tion, and  then  in  the  author's  volume  L'ln- 
effagahle;  Paul  Claudel,  La  Nuit  de  Noel  de 
1914:  it  is  a  sort  of  one  act  mystery  play,  in 
346 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

verse,  showing  on  the  night  commemorating  the 
birth  of  the  Divine  Child,  the  murdered  children 
of  Belgium  and  Northern  France  who  arrive  in 
Paradise — from  which  place  of  delight  they  look 
down  on  the  sufferings  of  the  world.  It  is  a 
moving  indictment  from  the  mouths  of  the  inno- 
cents, recalling  several  concrete  instances  of  Ger- 
man barbarity. 

La  Vierge  de  Lutece,  by  A.  Villeroy  (Librairie 
Theatrale)  represented  at  the  Theatre  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  June  29,  1915,  is  a  dramatic  presenta- 
tion of  the  legend  of  Sainte  Genevieve,  the 
patron-saint  of  Paris  who  saved  the  citj'  from 
the  Huns  in  the  fifth  century.  The  allusions  to 
the  events  of  the  Great  War  are  clear  to  all: 
''lis  ne  passeront  pas!"  exclaims  Sainte  Gene- 
vieve; "La  civilisation,  c'est  moi!"  says  At- 
tila;  and  when  Aetius,  the  commander  of  the 
army  which  defends  Paris,  gives  his  order  of 
the  day  for  the  decisive  battle,  he  does  so  in 
the  words  of  Marshal  Joffre's  famous  proclama- 
tion, on  the  5th  of  September,  1914:  "Le  mo- 
ment n'est  plus  de  regarder  en  arriere.  .  .  . 
Quiconque  ne  pourra  plus  avancer  a  I'ordre  de 
garder  le  terrain  conquis  .  .  .  il  se  fera  tuer 
sans  reculer  d'un  pas.  ..."  At  the  end,  Sainte 
Genevieve  is  solemnly  admonished  by  the  Bishop 
347 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Germain  I'Auxerrois  to  "continuer  a  veiller  sur 
la  ville  endormie. ' '  * 

Several  plays  were  special!}^  written  for  Sarah 
Bernhardt.  We  will  mention  only  one: 
Eugene  Moraud's  very  spectacular  Les  Cathe- 
drales,  in  fine  verse  (November,  1916,  Theatre 
Sarah  Bernhardt).  In  a  gray  cloud,  five  nuns 
representing  the  cathedrals  of  five  French 
regions  are  bemoaning  the  tragic  events  of  the 
war.  They  are,  Notre  Dame  de  Paris,  Saint  Pol 
de  Leon,  Bourges,  Amiens,  Aries — and  later 
are  seen  the  two  martyr  cathedrals,  Reims  and 
Strassbourg.  Maledictions  and  prophecies  of 
divine  punishments  against  the  invaders  are  in- 
terpreted with  all  the  passion  at  the  command  of 
Madame  Sarah  Bernhardt — who  impersonates 
Strassbourg.  There  are  other  plays  of  that 
kind ;  such,  for  instance,  as  L'Eternelle  Presence, 
written  by  the  poet  Andre  Dumas  for  the  com- 
memoration of  the  Battle  of  the  Mame,  at  the 
Comedie  Fran§aise,  in  1917 ;  or,  as  Lavedan  and 

4  A  poetical  staging  of  the  great  Serbian  drama  will 
be  found  in  Maurice  Allan's  La  Main  qui  tend  V  £'pee, 
two  acts  (June,  1918).  The  play  is  interspersed  with 
tragic  patriotic  songs;  it  was  staged  in  a  very  pictur- 
esque manner,  and  meant  to  be  an  appeal  for  sympathy 
for  the  victims  of  a  ferocious  foe. 

The  "drame  lyrique,"  Jeanne  d'Arc,  by  Raymond  Roze 
(presented  in  the  winter  1917-18)   being  all  music,  lies, 
of  course,  outside  the  subject  of  this  study. 
348 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

Zamacois's  Les  Sacrifices  {Les  Flandres,  Noel, 
Reims,  Poeme  dramatique  en  trois  tableaux 
(1918);  the  first  "tableau"  is  a  picture  of 
refugees  fleeing  before  the  invaders;  the  second, 
a  Christmas  in  the  trenches;  and  the  third,  a 
sort  of  monologue  by  the  Rheims  cathedral, 
evoking  the  memorj^  of  Joan  of  Arc  and  of  the 
heroic  cohorts  in  horizon-blue  uniform.  The 
"poeme"  was  not  presented.^ 
#         *         * 

More  ambitious  than  all  the  preceding  plays — 
but  still  indisputably  a  "piece  de  circonstance" 
is  Francois  Porche's  Les  Butors  et  la  Finette. 
The  author  was  already  well  known  by  a  fine 
poem,  I'Arret  sur  la  Marne.  The  play — four 
acts,  six  tableaux,  in  verse — was  presented  for 
the  first  time  on  November  29,  1917,  at  the 
Theatre  Antoine,  and  created  quite  a  sensation. 
It  is  an  allegorical  history  of  the  war.  The 
Miron  family  (this  means  the  French  people) 
are  cultivating  a  beautiful  garden  for  Princesse 
Finette  (France),  whose  graceful  kindness  and 
genuineness  of  heart  have  been  responsible  for 

5  Professor  Ferdinand  Briinot  wrote  La  Defense  de 
Schirmeck,  a  series  of  patriotic  tableaux  in  reconquered 
Alsace  ( five  acts ) .  It  was  meant  to  be  played  by  the 
people,  following  the  idea  of  Maurice  Pottecher  in  the 
Theatre  du  Peuplc,  in  Bussanp,  Lorraine. 
349 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

her  blind  confidence  in  the  foreigner  Buq,  the 
superintendent  of  the  domain,  and  a  master  spy. 
The  Butors  (the  ''Pig-headed"  ones,  as  poetic  a 
name  as  could  be  found  for  the  Huns)  invaded 
the  domain  just  as  every  one  was  preparing  for 
festivities.  .  .  .  During  the  war,  the  enemy  pro- 
poses to  Finette  a  luring  but  deceitful  peace ;  but 
she  has  enough  sense,  and  especially  pride,  to 
refuse.  And  finally  Francois  Miron,  the  imper- 
sonation of  the  chivalrous  people  of  France,  frees 
the  country  of  the  foe  and  becomes  the  lord  of 
the  fine  lady.  As  to  Buq,  the  traitor,  he  has  paid 
with  his  life  for  his  shameful  and  contemptible 
behavior.  Victory  has  not  been  achieved  with- 
out heavy  sacrifices,  but,  free  from  the  fear  of 
invasion,  Finette 's  people  again  set  about 
cultivating  the  beautiful  garden  of  France.® 

What  shall  we  say  about  the  claim  of  Porche : 
"En  ecrivant  Les  Butors  et  la  Finette  nous 
n'avons  pretendu  a  rien  moins  qu'  a  renouveler 
la  scene.  L  'avenir  seul  dira  si  ,  nous  avons 
reussi "  ?    ( P.  9. )    Does  he  mean  that  the  theater 

6  Tlie  poetical  figure  which  represents  France  as  a  fine 
garden  entrusted  to  her  people  had  been  beautifully 
Avorked  out  by  Peguy  in  his  Porche  du  Mystere  de  la 
Deuxieme  Vertu  (1911).  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
Porche  knew  about  it,  and  made  that  the  starting 
point  of  his  allegorical  play,  since  he  published  in  1914 
a  little  book,  Peguy  et  les  Cahiers. 
350 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

ought  to  be  inspired  more  by  patriotic  preoccu- 
pations? In  that  case  he  could  hardly  claim  to 
have  put  forth  an  original  idea.  Or  does  he  sug- 
gest going  back  once  more  to  the  "genre  alle- 
gorique"  which  flourished  in  the  days  of  the 
Roman  de  la  Rosef  The  success  of  Les  Ca- 
ihedrales  might,  perhaps,  support  the  view 
that  the  public  is  not  insensible  to  that  sort 
of  poetical  language.  Indeed,  another  attempt 
to  abandon  the  realistic  and  the  concrete,  in 
favor  of  the  ideal  and  the  abstract,  was  made 
almost  at  the  same  time  as  Porche  gave  his 
Les  Butors  et  la  Finette,  when  the  "Theatre 
des  Allies"  founded  by  M.  Jean  Billaud  with  the 
purpose  of  propaganda  during  and  after  the 
war,  gave  as  its  first  production  Les  Epis  Rouges 
by  Emile  Sicard,  the  Provengal  poet.  This  work 
is  an  elaborately  staged  "Poeme  dramatique"  in 
four  acts,  some  parts  of  which  are  set  to  music. 
The  author  has  aimed  less  at  presenting  regular 
scenes  than  tableaux  representing  the  days  of 
mobilization;  women  waiting  with  anguish  for 
news  of  the  front;  a  night  of  spectacular  war 
display  at  Verdun,  etc.  And  the  characters  are 
not  so  much  individuals  as  abstractions:  the 
mother,  the  betrothed,  the  ancestor,  the  warrior, 
etc.  While  Les  Epis  Rouges  cannot  be  said  to 
351 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  been  a  failure,  it  certainly  did  not  take  the 
public  by  storm. 

However  one  looks  at  that  special  question  it 
does  not  seem  that  we  have  in  Porche  something 
so  very  different  from  other  ''pieces  de  circon- 
stances,"  except  that  his  play  was  much  more 
elaborate;  possibly,  posterity  will  agree  with 
the  verdict  of  Ernest  Charles,  that  Porche  has 
given  a  "piece  pas  negligeable, "  while  so  many 
others  are  " negligeables "  {Opinion,  4  Janvier, 
1918).  A  proof  that  Porche  was  determined  to 
continue  his  efforts  in  that  direction  is  found  in 
the  fact  that  he  has  since  given  another  play  La 
Jeune  Fille  aux  J  ones  Roses  (Theatre  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  March  16,  1919).  It  suggests  a  re- 
form of  France  after  the  war,  and  is  again  in 
the  form  of  an  allegory.  In  the  country  of  the 
Pale-cheeked,  oppressed  by  laws  and  etiquette, 
crushed  under  bureaucracy,  suffering  from  the 
learning  and  pedantry  of  its  rulers,  appears  one 
day  the  "Girl  with  Rosy  Cheeks."  ...  She 
scandalizes  the  old  wigs,  men  and  women,  with 
her  impulsive  manners  and  her  unsophisticated 
ways  of  thinking  and  speaking.  But  thanks  to 
these  very  things  she  finds  her  way  to  the  heart 
of  the  Prince  of  that  gloomy  land.  After  many 
adventures,  tragic  at  times,  allegorical  always, 
352 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

the  Prince  marries  the  Girl.  The  satire  which 
was  meant  to  be  biting  is  not  dangerous  after 
all ;  this  play,  like  the  preceding  one,  rather  lacks 
body.     Rostand  had  more  power  associated  with 

his  wit.^ 

*        *        # 

This  would  be  the  place  probably  to  say  some- 
thing about  the  theater  in  the  trenches.  Much 
interest  has  been  shown  for  it ;  yet  very  scanty 
information  is  on  hand.  Some  day  perhaps,  if  a 
writer  finds  time  to  do  it  before  it  is  too  late  and 
before  the  documents  are  too  hopelessly  scat- 
tered, we  may  know  more.     It  may  be  permitted, 

7  The  attitude  of  critics  toward  the  second  play — 
and,  througli  the  second,  even  toward  the  first — can  be 
gathered  from  an  amusing  article  by  Billotey,  in  Les 
Marges  (an  influential  review  of  young  authors)  in 
June,  1919.  Tlie  critic  pretends  that  Porche  came  to 
interview  liim  about  a  new  play  he  had  in  preparation, 
Le  Lapin  blanc  sur  les  Flots  7ioirs.  Porche  is  supposed 
to  explain  thus:  "Quel  symbole,  monsieur,  quel  sym- 
bole!  .  .  .  Acte  premier:  la  naissance  du  lapin  si  Mos- 
cou.  Deuxi&me  acte :  le  lapin  s'installe  en  France  et 
il  y  remplace  le  veau  d'or.  Troisieme  acte :  la  cour  et 
le  bonheur  dii  lapin  bleu.  Quatri&me  acte:  guerre  et 
revolution.  Cinquieme  acte:  la  sc&ne  represente  un 
vaisseau  de  haut  bord.  C'est  la  dette  flottante  qui  vogue 
vers  ricarie.  Le  lapin  bleu  s'y  est  r6fugi6  avec  sa 
suite  et  dit:      C'est  ici  que  je  roudrais  vivre. 

'"Permettez,"  then  says  M.  Billotey — *"le  dernier  vers 
n'est  pas  de  vous.  Et  le  sujet  meme  de  la  pi&ce  appar- 
tient  tl  un  auteur  d^funt." 

"Qu'importe."' — answers  Porche, — "Je  I'ai  trouv6  tout 
seul.     On  m'a  dejTi  reproche  bien  des  reminiscences.     Je 
m'en   moque.     Quand   on    travaille   aussi    vite   que   moi, 
on  n'echappe  pas  il  cet  inconvenient  lil." 
353 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

however,  to  doubt  whether  many  of  these  occa- 
sional plays  written  by  the  soldiers  will  offer 
lasting  literary  value,  and  whether  the  study 
would  not  be  rather  of  an  historical  or  psycho- 
logical value  as  showing  the  spirit  that  prevailed 
among  the  soldiers  of  the  war.  A  few  probably 
will  be  found  worth  preserving,  as,  for  instance, 
the  pretty  little  dialogue  by  Jean  Suberville, 
caporal  mitrailleur  au  94°  d'Infanterie,  Cyrano 
de  Bergerac  aux  Tranchees.  When  it  was 
printed,  the  little"  play  was  honored  by  a  short 
"Lettre-Preface"  by  Edmond  Rostand.  Sol- 
diers represented  it  on  the  "Theatre  Chantecler" 
of  the  "32°  Corps  d'armee"  which  gave  two 
hundred  and  fifty  performances  during  thirteen 
months.  Cyrano  comes  to  our  planet,  in  his 
fall  almost  pitching  through  the  wings  of  "un 
papillon  enorme  qui  passait,"  and  seeing  very 
queer  "gros  hannetons  aux  bourdonnantes 
elitres"  (air  torpedoes).  In  finding  soldiers  of 
France  hiding  in  holes  in  the  ground  he  is 
shocked  terribly : 

Le  temps  a-t-il  change  les  Frangais  heroiques  ? 

To  which  the  "Poilu"  answers,  well  conscious 
that  he  has  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of: 

lis  sent  ee  qu'ils  etaient,  en  etant  plus  pratiques! 
354 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

Ce  qui  change,  c'est  la  maniere,  pas  I'elan! 
Vous  autres,  vous  f  aisiez  la  guerre  en  rigolant ! 
Ca  ne  durait  qu'un  an  vos  batailles  gentilles! 
Vos  canons  ne  lan^aient  que  des  boules  de  quilles! 
Puis  quand  vous  reveniez  dans  vos  nobles  salons, 
Les  dames  se  haussaient  au  bout  de  leurs  talons.  .  .  . 

Nous  qui  sommes  vetus  de  boue,  admirez-nous  I 
Nous  qui  ne  portons  pas  de  plumet,  mais  des  poux, 

Je  crois  que  nous  valons  encore  nos  aieux ; 
Que,    s'ils    furent    plus    beaux,    ils    ne    firent    pas 
mieux.  .  .  . 

And  Cyrano  understands: 

Et  je  te  reconnais,  France  des  mousquetaires, 
Dans  la  France  de  ces  Poilus ! 

( The  reader  may  be  referred  for  some  informa- 
tion on  the  early  days  of  the  Theatre  aux  Tran- 
chees,  to  an  article  in  the  Revue  Internationale 

de  Sociologie,  of  November,  1915.) 

•        *        « 

We  come  now  to  a  group  of  writers  who  bor- 
rowed materials  from  the  war,  but  endeavored  to 
remain  entirely  indifferent  to  the  patriotic  side 
of  their  plots.  They  are  war-plays  without  the 
war  spirit.  They  are  not  unpatriotic  in  pur- 
pose, merely  a-patriotic.  At  the  same  time  they 
are  unpleasant — and  if  not  atrocity  plays,  surely 
most  of  them  are  atrocious  plays. 
355 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

A  good  deal  has  been  said  about  the  unsettled 
state  of  moral  standards  during  and  after  a  war ; 
and  the  question  has  been  more  than  once  asked,, 
how  far  should  the  social  obligations  of  normal 
times  be  considered  binding?  These  plays  are  a 
few  samples  illustrating  such  preoccupations. 
L'A^nazone  (1915)  by  Bataille,  is  the  painful 
story  of  a  girl  of  the  invaded  provinces,  who, 
having  seen  her  whole  family  slaughtered,  gets 
into  a  state  of  patriotic  frenzy  which  in  the 
milieu  where  she  has  taken  refuge,  proves  to  be 
contagious;  she  makes  use  of  her  womanly 
charms  to  induce  the  husband  of  her  friend  to 
join  the  army  as  volunteer ;  then,  later,  when  she 
wants  to  marry  another,  the  wife  of  the  soldier 
maintains  that  she  has  no  right  to  do  so,  since 
she  is  now  morally  bound  to  the  man  who  went 
to  war  on  her  account ;  she  accepts  that  view. 

A  somewhat  analogous  situation  is  sketched  in 
Marcel  L'Herbier's  L' Enfant  dii  Mort  (1917). 
In  Andre  Couvreur's  Plus  haut  que  I' Amour 
(1916),  the  heroine  appears  again  as  if  com- 
pletely at  a  loss  when  she  has  to  decide  on  her 
line  of  conduct  in  love-affairs;  she  acts  accord- 
ing to  the  inspiration  of  the  moment,  now  ignor- 
ing the  love  of  a  man  whom  she  knows  to  be 
worthy  of  her,  now  throwing  herself  away  on  a 
356 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

man  who  turns  out  to  be  a  spy,  and  then  finally 
taking  refuge  in  the  arms  of  the  strong  man  who 
had  protected  her  from  the  beginning.  In  Ver- 
net  et  Delamarre's  L'aidre  Combat,  a  woman  in 
a  moment  of  self-sacrifice  marries  a  blind  sol- 
dier to  whom  she  had  been  betrothed  though  she 
did  not  love  him;  she  then  betrays  him;  and 
finally  she  repents.  ...  In  1917  the  Comedie 
Francaise  presented  Francis  de  Croisset's  D'un 
Jour  a  V Autre,  another  keen  study  of  a  woman 
character  during  the  war.  This  heroine  hesi- 
tates whether  to  give  her  love  to  a  fashionable 
mondain  who  has  been  divorced,  to  a  business 
man  who  has  grown  rich  through  the  war,  or  to  a 
fascinating  hero  of  aviation — she  decides  for  the 
last,  but  only  after  long  deliberation.  One  can 
easily  recognize  the  style  of  the  man  who  shortly 
before  the  war  had  written  L'Epervier  {The 
Hawk). 

Porto-Riche's  gruesome  drama,  Le  Marchand 
d'Estampes  (1917),  is  the  most  powerful  of  those 
descriptions  of  normal  moral  lives  which  are 
shattered  in  consequence  of  the  war:  Aubertin 
was  a  quiet  lover  of  art,  selling  engravings,  lead- 
ing a  model  life  as  husband  and  tradesman,  in 
his  little  shop.  Then  he  joins  the  colors.  In  the 
crude,  natural,  almost  animal  life  of  the  trenches, 
357 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

his  lower,  bestial  instincts  are  re-awakened  and 
take  the  upper  hand ;  so  that,  when  he  returns 
home,  wounded,  he  falls  in  love  (sensual  love) 
at  first  sight,  with  a  woman  of  the  neighbor- 
hood (who  is  never  seen  on  the  stage).  He  re- 
tains, however,  enough  decency  to  realize  the  un- 
cleanness  of  his  passion,  and  to  be  profoundly 
unhappy  about  it.  He  does  not  want  to  do  any 
wrong  to  the  devoted  companion  of  his  life. 
She,  too,  is  plunged  in  deep  grief,  and,  finally, 
they  both  go  together  and  throw  themselves  in 
the  Seine, — he,  so  as  not  to  be  unfaithful  to  his 
wife,  she,  so  as  not  to  be  separated  from  her 
husband. 

Less  gloomy — and  more  generously  inspired — 
is  Laudenbach's  Le  Sacrifice  (1918)  ;  the  author 
expresses  the  idea  that  war  ought  to  reflect  on 
the  whole  life  of  the  soldier,  making  him  chival- 
rous not  only  in  his  military  activities  but  at  all 
times.  AVith  all  its  loftiness  of  purpose,  Le  Sac- 
rifice is,  after  all,  a  "triangle  play"  of  the 
trenches. 

Having  even  more  clearly  the  characteristics 
of  a  "triangle  play"  but  one  written  by  two 
skillful  craftsmen  of  the  stage,  is  La  Veillee 
d'Armes,  by  Claude  Farrere  and  Louis  Nepoty 
(Gymnase,  Jan.  5,  1917).  The  scene  is  first  on 
358 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

a  small  vessel,  the  Alma,  a  scouting  cruiser. 
Captain  Corlaix,  50  years  of  age,  has  a  young 
wife  of  23,  Jeanne.  She  is  a  pretty  woman, 
not  bad  at  heart  but  made  of  the  common 
clay,  and  she  regards  him  as  a  father  rather 
than  a  husband.  She  loves  d'Artelles,  first 
lieutenant  of  the  ship.  There  is  a  farewell 
dinner  on  board;  they  all  expect  war,  and  the 
men  are  eager  to  start.  At  11  o'clock  an  or- 
der arrives,  however,  to  remain  for  the  pres- 
ent' in  Toulon,  although  war  is  now  unavoid- 
able. Jeanne  and  her  sister  must  leave  the 
boat,  but  Jeanne  finds  at  the  last  minute  some 
pretext — a  lost  vanity  bag — to  remain,  and  she 
spends  the  night  in  the  room  of  d'Ardelles,  ex- 
pecting to  leave  by  the  6  o'clock  rowboat.  But 
a  counter  order  arrives,  and  the  vessel  sails.  .  .  . 
In  the  morning,  d  'Ardelles  finds  with  dismay  that 
they  are  at  sea,  with  the  woman  aboard.  They 
are  attacked  by  a  German  torpedo  boat,  which 
has  used  French  code  signals  to  lure  the  Alma  to 
its  destruction.  The  Alma  is  sinking.  Corlaix 
is  wounded ;  he  thinks  he  is  lost.  D  'Ardelles  dies 
in  trying  to  save  Jeanne,  and  entrusts  her  to 
the  care  of  his  orderly.  She  succeeds  in  return- 
ing home,  without  any  one  except  her  sister  sus- 
pecting what  has  happened  to  her.  Corlaix  also 
359 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

is  saved  and  recovers.  But  then  he  is  summoned 
before  a  court-martial  to  answer  for  the  loss  of 
his  vessel.  There  is  no  witness  to  prove  that  the 
enemy  used  French  signals;  only  two  officers 
have  survived,  Corlaix  himself,  and  Bramburg, 
a  somewhat  suspicious  character,  possibly  a  spy, 
who  is  in  love  with  Jeanne  but  whom  she  hates. 
Under  the  pretext  of  amnesia,  he  declares  him- 
self unable  to  testify  either  way.  Jeanne,  in  or- 
der to  save  Corlaix,  intervenes.  She  has  a  means 
of  forcing  Bramburg  to  admit  that  he  knows  that 
the  Germans  used  French  signals : — of  course,  by 
doing  this,  she  must  own  to  the  fact  that  she  was 
on  the  vessel.  Corlaix  understands  all;  and, — 
rather  as  father  and  daughter  now, — they  shake 
hands  and  return  home.  La  Veillee  d' Amies  is 
a  strong  drama,  in  which,  however,  the  war  has 

no  essential  part. 

*         *         * 

As  the  war  proceeded,  and  its  gloomiest  days 
were  succeeded  by  more  hopeful  ones,  especially 
after  the  entrance  of  America,  the  theater  ceased 
to  be  used  as  a  means  of  inspiring  the  people. 
There  are  still  plays  recalling  the  war,  of  course, 
such  as  the  humorous  Beulemans  a  Marseilles 
(1918)  in  which  Fronson  revives  his  famous  Bel- 
gian characters  made  up  of  pathos  and  joviality ; 
360 


THE  STAGE  AND  THE  WAR 

or,  as  Jacques  Richepin's  "cocardier"  play.  La 
Guerre  et  I' Amour,  Piece  hero'ique,  en  quatre 
actes  et  en  vers  (1918)  ;  or,  such  as  Sacha  Guit- 
ry's  L'Archeveque  et  son  Fils  (1918),  in  which 
the  author  seems  to  think  that  the  war  was  made 
to  give  him  material  for  witty  but  flippant  stage 
effects,  (the  play  reminds  one  somewhat  of 
Merimee's  Carosse  du  Saint  Sacrement).  Ante- 
war  plays,  it  is  true,  continued  to  be  given  after 
the  spring  of  1917  and  proved  that  the  war  was 
still  in  the  minds  of  the  people;  but  oftentimes 
the  connection  between  the  preoccupation  of  the 
hour  and  the  stage  seems  to  be  a  very  slight  one. 
In  I'Ahhe  Constantin,  for  instance,  which  was  re- 
vived at  that  time,  the  presence  of  two  American 
(or  Canadian)  women,  and  of  a  young  French 
officer,  is  the  only  reminder  of  contemporary 
events.  Meanwhile,  plays  which  ignore  the  war 
altogether  become  more  and  more  numerous; 
Sacha  Guitry  offers  L' Illusionist e,  Geraldy,  Les 
Noces  d' Argent  (which  was  written  before  the 
war),  and  Lucien  Guitry,  Le  Pere.^ 


8  For  more  information  regarding  the  French  Theater 
in  war  time,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Brisson,  Le 
Theatre  peyidant  la  guerre  (1918),  a  collection  of  his 
articles  in  Le  Temps.  A  book  which  discusses  the  pos- 
sible forms  of  the  drama  after  the  war  is  Alfn-d 
Mortier's  Dramaturgie  de  Paris.  The  title  is  evidently 
361 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  is  one  play  which  will  probably  not  be 
presented  on  the  French  stage  for  some  time  to 
come,  but  which  may  be  mentioned  as  a  curiosity, 
Romain  Rolland's  Lisuli  (Geneva,  1919).  The 
pacifist  of  1914  is  anxious  to  show  that  he  has  not 
changed  his  views  and  is  still  willing  to  challenge 
the  world  that  this  war  was  absurd.  He  still 
refuses  to  draw  any  distinction  between  the  Cen- 
tral Powers,  who  yielded  to  the  folly  of  war  be- 
cause they  wanted  to  do  so,  and  the  Allies,  who 
waged  war  in  order  to  exterminate  the  war  spirit 
from  the  surface  of  the  earth:  Any  war  is 
folly !  Lisuli  is  the  goddess  of  illusion,  who  per- 
suades men,  and  especially  youth,  that  war  can 
be  a  noble  thing.  .  .  .  When  the  curtain  falls, 
this  belief  has  brought  about  a  formidable  crash, 
and  on  a  heap  of  ruins  sits  triumphantly  Lisuli, 
her  tongue  out  and  her  finger  to  her  nose. 

chosen  in  remembrance  of,  and  in  opposition  to,  Lessing's 
Hamburgische  Dramaturgic:  The  pessimism  of  the 
generation  of  1870  will  not  survive,  and  the  "TheAtre 
h^roique"  will  come.  What  is  this  to  be?  "Prose 
drama,  philosophical  synthesis,  the  great  epic  pictures 
of  modern  society,  the  vast  problems  of  the  new  world, 
symbols,  the  acting  of  the  'groupes'  in  their  'activite 
totale,'  mob  psychology,  or,  again,  a  fanciful  Fortune 
playing  allegorically  with  human  destinies :  or,  even 
farce  if  it  be  'grandiose' — all  those  will  be  part  of  the 
Theatre  heroTque.  .  .  ."  If  the  Theatre  h6roique  is  to 
be  so  many  things,  would  it  not  have  been  simpler  to 
state  what  it  is  not  going  to  be?  (F.  Vand^rem,  in 
Figaro,  August  19,  1918,  also  discusses  the  Thedtre 
d'apres  Guerre.  See  also  Vic,  op.  cit.  pp.  643-4 ) . 
362 


Ill 

War-Time  Fiction 

In  our  First  Part,  Chapter  II,  we  made  a  dis- 
tinction between  "War-novels" — like  Gaspard, 
Bourru  de  Vauquois,  Le  Feu,  etc., — which  offered 
actual  war  experiences  in  the  form  of  fiction,  and 
thus  are  real  war  documents,  and  "War-Time 
novels"  which  were  written  by  authors  who  do 
not  use  personal  recollections,  but  chiefly  their 
own  creative  talents,  and  who  moreover  often 
use  war  only  because  it  provides  excellent  mate- 
rial for  thrilling  stories.  We  have  already  dealt 
with  the  first  class. 

Abstractly  speaking,  the  second  class — war- 
time novels — offers  better  opportunities  to  the 
real  artist  in  so  far  as  it  allows  more  play  to  the 
individuality  of  the  writer.  Yet,  from  1914  to 
1918,  war-time  fiction  has  proved  to  be  rather 
insignificant.  We  need,  therefore,  devote  to  it 
only  a  short  chapter.  Less  than  anywhere  else 
do  we  aim  here  at  being  exhaustive,  and  we  refer 
the  reader  once  more  to  the  catalogue  by  Vic,  op. 
cit. 

3G3 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

We  consider  this  insignificance  an  entirely  nor- 
mal phenomenon.  Fiction  ought  to  be  resorted 
to  only  when  reality  does  not  offer  better  ma- 
terial; and  things  being  so,  it  is  by  no  means  a 
paradox,  but  a  natural  and  plain  truth,  that  the 
best  war-time  fiction — as  well  as  the  best  war- 
plays — had  been  written  before  the  war.  No  fic- 
tion written  during  the  war  has  proved  equal  to 
Bazin's  Les  Oherle  (1901),^  Maurice  Barres's  Co- 
lette Baudoche  (1912),  or  Lichtenberger's  Jiiste 
Lohel,  VAlsacien  (1913), — all  on  the  question  of 
Alsace-Lorraine ;  Prevost  's  Les  Anges  Gardiens 
(1912), — on  the  spy  question;  P.  Margueritte 's 
Les  Frontieres  du  Coeiir  (1912), — on  Franco- 
German  marriages;  not  to  speak  of  Zola's  De- 
bacle (1892),  and  the  Brothers  Margueritte 's 
series  L'Epoque  {Le  Desastre,  1897,  Trongons 
du  Glaive,  1900,  Braves  Gens,  1901,  Commune, 
1902),  which,  although  borrowing  material  from 
the  Franco-Prussian  war,  were  written  with  the 

future  in  mind. 

*         *         * 

Certainly  one  of  the  best  war-time  novels  is 
Marcel  Prevost's  L'Adjudant  Benoit  (1916). 
It  is  the  story  of  a  young  officer  who  falls  in 

1  Bazin  has  published  during  the  war  La  Closerie  de 
Champdolent    (1917),  and  since  the  war  Les  Nouveaux 
Oherle.     Our  remark  applies  in  both  cases. 
364 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

love  with  the  daughter  of  a  dangerous  spy  on 
the  frontier,  of  Lorraine.  The  spy  poses  as  a 
veteran  of  1870-71.  He  had  taken  part  in  the 
war,  but  on  the  German  side.  Adjudaut  Benoit 
one  day  discovers  the  real  nature  of  the  man, 
who  receives  him  in  his  little  house  to  get,  if  pos- 
sible, information.  He  kills  him.  The  daughter 
is  hit  by  a  shell  a  few  hours  later  when  the  Ger- 
mans invade  the  country:  she  dies  however  in 
ignorance  of  the  crime  of  her  father.  The  suf- 
fering of  Adjudant  Benoit  in  doing  what,  as  a 
soldier,  he  has  to  do,  and  then  concealing  the 
truth  from  the  woman  he  loves,  is  admirably  de- 
scribed in  Prevost's  best  style.  But  if  it  fails  to 
stir  us  it  is  simply  because  one  cannot  help  think- 
ing that  there  have  been  real  dramas  as  moving, 
and  more  so: — fiction  is  not  interesting  under 
such  circumstances  as  prevailed  when  Prevost 
wrote,  and  if  Prevost  did  not  succeed — ivho 
could 'P 

There   are   other  spy  novels.     One   by   Leon 

2  A  war-time  novel  as  broadly  conceived  and  as  am- 
bitious in  every  way  as  H.  G.  Wells's  Mr.  Britling  tlecs 
It  Through,  or  Ibauez's  The  Four  Horsemen  of  the  Apoc- 
alypse had  not  yet  been  attempted  in  France  when  the 
war  ended,  unless  one  wishes  to  reckon  as  such  Les 
Fresques  de  Feu  et  de  Sang,  by  Francois  de  la  GueriniJre, 
in  three  volumes  {La  Kultur  d6chain6e,  Les  Sillons  de 
la  Gloire,  L'Arc-en-Ciel) . 

365 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Daudet,  La  Vermdne  du  Monde — in  which  the 
author  uses  the  material  of  his  book  L'Avant- 
guerre  mentioned  elsewhere ;  as  a  novel  it  is  very 
commonplace,  and  the  documents  are  more  inter- 
esting as  presented  in  the  original  work.^  An- 
other is  Marthe  Steiner,  by  Aveze,  the  gruesome 
story  of  an  "  ange  gardien ' ' :  the  woman-spy  puts 
out  the  eyes  of  the  father  of  a  boy  entrusted  to 
her  care,  and  has  the  child  killed.  A.  de  Villele, 
Allemand  d'Amerique  (1918)  tells  of  pre-war 
German  propaganda  in  New  York, — quite  plaus- 
ible in  the  light  of  what  we  know. 

Paul  Margueritte  likes  to  deal  with  problems. 
In  1916,  he  published  VEmbusque,  the  story  of 
a  man  who  eludes  his  military  duties  and  hides 
in  Paris  with  a  woman.  That  woman 's  husband, 
however,  who  had  served  his  country  as  a  sol- 
dier, returns,  and  the  wife,  realizing  how  far  su- 
perior he  is  to  the  other,  abandons  her  cowardly 
lover.  In  La  Terre  Natal e  (1917),  Margueritte 
tells  of  two  brothers  who  were  of  military  age  at 
the  outbreak  of  hostilities,  one  of  whom  had  been 
brought  up   in  France,  and  the  other  in  Ar- 

3  L6on  Daudet  has  another  novel,  Le  Coeur  et  VAh- 
sence,  the  romantic  story  of  a  woman  who,  thinking  that 
her  husband  has  died  in  the  war,  yields  to  his  former 
friend  whom  she  loves — but  the  husband  comes  back  and 
the  book  ends  with  a  tragedv. 
366 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

gentina.  The  first  one  alone  is  morally  prepared 
for  the  emergency  of  the  Great  War.  In  1918, 
the  same  author  published  Pour  la  Patrie,  and  in 
the  same  year,  Jouir,  a  two  volume  novel  in 
which  he  pours  contempt  on  the  despicable  con- 
duct of  the  "fetards"  of  Nice  and  other  society 
resorts,  whose  unconcern  with  the  great  problems 
of  mankind  brands  them  as  responsible  for  the 
fearful  cataclysm.  (The  author  died  in  the  last 
days  of  1918.)    • 

Another  prolific  author — whose  name  it  would 
probably  not  do  to  omit — is  Ch.-II.  Hirsch,  a 
man  who  has,  ever  since  he  began  to  write,  more 
than  twenty  years  ago,  wasted  really  remarkable 
gifts,  by  a  too  abundant  output.  His  Mariee  en 
1914  tells  how  people  who  existed  in  a  sort  of 
irresponsible  way  before  the  war,  have  now  been  ' 
compelled  to  look  facts  in  the  face.  The  book 
is  altogether  lacking  in  cheerfulness.  Chacun 
son  Devoir  (1915)  takes  up  again  a  war  situa- 
tion of  a  very  depressing  nature.  (Hirsch  be- 
longs to  the  generation  which  believed  that  it 
was  a  sign  of  superiority  to  paint  life  as  grue- 
some.) In  1917  Hirsch  produced  still  another 
book.  La  grande  Capricieuse — Death. 

Of  a  higher  quality,  because  the  authors  are 
more  spontaneously  tragic,  and  the  reader  feels 
367 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

less  the  determination  to  write  despondent 
stories,  are  Ch.  Geniaux,  Les  Fiances  de  1914, 
E.  Moselly,  Le  Journal  de  Gottfried  Mauser,  and 
Roland  Dorgeles,  Les  Croix  de  Bois.  They  are 
only  novels,  but  three  of  the  finest  of  those 
years.  The  last  named  was  awarded  the  much 
coveted  "Prix  de  la  Vie  Heureuse"  for  1919,  and 
pronounced  by  some  much  superior  to  Le  Feu. 
The  fact  that  it  was  prefaced  by  Barbusse  may 
account,  perhaps,  for  some  of  the  success  of 
Cyril  Berger's  Pendant  qu'il  se  hat  (1918)  :  the 
story  of  a  soldier,  very  devoted  in  his  service  but 
unable  to  get  any  recognition  for  it — who  finds 
compensations  of  some  sort  in  the  love  of  a  good 
woman;  and  Louis  L,  Martin's  Jean  Denys 
(1918)  also  deals  with  a  painful  psychological 
case  supposed  to  be  brought  about  by  the  war. 

In  very  many  instances,  the  war  is  nothing  but 
a  sort  of  necessary  seasoning  to  the  literary  dish 
of  the  day;  the  novelists  use  the  war  merely  to 
get  people  to  look  at  their  wares — as  liquor  deal- 
ers sometimes  put  bells  and  garlands  in  their  show 
windows  at  Christmas  time.  Such  is  the  case  of 
the  agreeable  and  abundant  Francois  de  Nion: 
the  scenes  oiPend<int  la  Guerre  (1915)  are  placed 
successively  in  Holland,  in  Germany,  in  France, 
368 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

and  these  various  milieus  are  pictured  prob- 
ably more  by  chic  than  by  observation.  Son 
Sang  pour  l' Alsace  (1916),  by  the  same  author, 
is  one  of  the  numerous  stories  of  love  between  a 
wounded  soldier  and  his  nurse,  and  claims  to  pre- 
sent some  of  the  problems  faced  by  that  class  of 
Alsatians  who  had  "half"  accepted  the  annex- 
ation. .  ,  .■*  Alsace-Lorraine  stories  are  natu- 
rally numerous.  Charles  de  Rouve's  Frangoise 
du  Rhin  (1915)  wa-s  crowned  by  the  French 
Academy  in  1916;  and  Abl)e  Wetterle's  pretty 
little  story  of  the  first  days  of  the  war,  Au  Serv- 
ice de  VEnnemi  (1917)  is  of  a  sound  patriotii"", 
inspiration;  it  breathes  contempt  for  the  Ger- 
man "Kultur"  which  the  Abbe  has  more  right 
to  scorn  than  any  other,  having  had  to  endure  it 
so  many  years  as  Deputy  from  Alsace  to  the 
Reichstag. 

*  *  # 
Of  the  war-time  novels  which  endeavor  to  give 
an  idea  of  the  way  in  which  the  people  of  the 
rear — the  bourgeois  class — were  affected,  none 
probably  has  scored  a  greater  success  than  Abel 
Hermant's  Heures  de  Guerre  de  la  Famille  Va- 
ladier  (1915).  This  is  not  a  great  testimonial 
to  such  war-time  novels.     For,  were  it  not  that 

*In  1917  he  published  Le  Missionnairc — same  style. 
369 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

the  author — b}^  his  fecundity  more  than  by  his 
really  superior  literary  gifts — was  well  known, 
there  are  reasons  to  believe  that  it  would  have 
won  him  no  fame.  Hermant  writes  with  humor, 
he  is  an  Anatole  France  without  genius  or  philo- 
sophical keenness.  However,  this  light  vein  has 
made  his  success,  and  he  therefore  exploits  it. 
Now,  in  war  times,  the  flippant  tone  is  out  of 
place  and  it  would  appear  inexcusable  if  one  did 
not  understand  how  difficult  it  is  for  a  man  of  a 
certain  age  to  change  his  style.  It  is  not  impos- 
sible, however,  and  even  Anatole  France,  who  is 
much  older  than  Hermant,  at  least  adapted  his 
style  to  war-circumstances.  But  Hermant  is  set 
in  his  habits;  he  is  like  a  cook  who  would  put 
the  same  seasoning — let  us  say  pepper — in  every 
dish:  soup,  meat,  ice-cream.  He  has  the  mania 
of  introducing  wit  everywhere ;  and  he  would  de- 
scribe in  his  operetta  style  the  sack  of  Louvain 
or  the  sinking  of  the  Lusitania.  ...  It  is  dis- 
tressing to  note  that  there  are  all  the  world  over, 
people  who  regard  this  as  extraordinarily  smart, 
and  so  French!  Hermant  tells  of  a  bourgeois 
family  in  Paris  during  the  first,  most  stirring 
weeks  of  the  war.  They  are  moderately  edu- 
cated, and  especially  interested  in  the  stage,  the 
eldest  daughter  having  just  received  a  "premier 
370 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

prix  de  conservatoire."  The  whole  famil}-  has 
more  or  less  melodramatic  inclinations,  being 
good  people  but  Philistines.  Against  this  back- 
ground he  sets  up  his  characters.  His  observa- 
tions, which  he  evidently  regards  as  subtly  iron- 
ical, are  hardly  even  original.  For  instance,  he 
notices  how  in  the  excitement  of  war  prepara- 
tions, people  overstep  all  etiquette  and  talk  to 
each  other  even  though  they  were  not  previously 
acquainted,  and  this  draws  from  him  the  cheaply 
sarcastic  remark:  "Greatly  did  it  surprise  me, 
for  we  had  been  told  many  times  of  late,  that 
equality  and  fraternity  were  empty  words.  It 
did  me  good  to  lay  aside  my  skepticism,  and  to 
see  these  pretty  fancies  revive.  ...  I  ceased  to 
smile  at  the  'peuple  souverain'  .  .  ."  (p.  20). 
Those  who  have  a  liking  for  the  style  goimilleur 
will  find  it  in  abundance  here.  Elsewhere  Iler- 
mant  discusses  the  appointment  of  a  friend  to  a 
position  as  interpreter;  but  he  recalls  that  he 
knows  no  English  :  ' '  This  is  not  perhaps  an  in- 
dispensable condition  for  an  appointment" — re- 
marked Madame  Valadier  (p.  161).  The  book 
is  full  of  such  insipid  remarks.  "Why  did  na- 
ture give  talent  to  such  a  man  to  render  the  trag- 
edies and  beauties  of  war  so  absurdly  flat  ? ' 

6  Hermant    also    wrote    L'autre   Aventure   du   Joyeus 
371 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

*         *         * 

Much  more  serious  and  superior  in  every  way 
is  Rene  Boylesve's  Tu  n'es  Plus  Rien  (1918). 
The  author  makes  a  keen  analysis  of  the  redemp- 
tion of  a  society  woman  by  the  war.  The  story 
is  parallel  to  many  of  those  telling  of  men  re- 
deemed by  their  experience  in  the  army  (e.  g., 
Berger's  Miracle  du  Feu).  The  Odette  of  Boy- 
lesve  is  by  no  means  a  bad  woman — that  would 
be  too  commonplace  and  easy  for  him.  On  the 
contrary  the  difficulty  with  her  is  that  she  loves 
her  husband  to  a  point  which  borders  on  ego- 
tism. Once  he  is  killed,  in  the  very  first  days  of 
the  war,  she  devotes  all  her  thoughts  entirely  to 
his  memory,  considering  any  thought  not  refer- 
ring to  him  as  nothing  less  than  an  infidelity. 
But  she  cannot  escape  the  atmosphere  of  the  war, 
of  course ;  and  gradually  the  enormous  sufferings 
of  others  all  around  her  bring  about  the  sur- 
render ;  she  yields  to  a  feeling  that  is  even  more 
intensely  painful,  but  is  of  a  loftier  nature.  The 
supreme  sacrifice  she  will  not  make  however  be- 
fore another  long  struggle ;  but  one  day  she 
will  find  it  in  her  to  accept  the  beautiful  duty  of 
leading  through  life  a  blinded  officer,  a  widower 

Gargon  (1915)  :  an  English  boy  comes  to  France  before 
the  war,  and  dies  there  during  the  war. 
372 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

with  two  little  children,  and  to  found  with  him 
a  new  home. 

A  short  novel  of  equally  fine  inspiration  is 
Pierrette,  by  Antoine  Redier  (1917).  Redier  is 
the  man  who  wrote  the  Meditations  dans  la  Tran- 
chee,  which  we  have  discussed  in  a  former  chap- 
ter ;  the  novel  is  worthy  of  his  pen.  Pierrette  is 
the  fiancee  of  an  officer  who  has  understood,  spe- 
cially since  1914,  the  sacredness  and  sternness 
of  life ;  she  does  not  like  the  idea  of  rearing 
children.  But  in  spite  of  that  she  is  morally 
sound  and  after  a  while  she  comes  to  see  the 
beauty  of  the  soldier's  philosophy.  Her  fiance 
dies  for  his  country,  and  she  determines  to  live 
for  her  countr}',  and  cherish  the  memory  of  her 
dead  lover.^ 


Henry  Bachelin's  La  Guerre  sur  le  Hameau 
(Flammarion,  1917)  is  as  forceful  a  presentation 
of  some  effects  of  the  war  upon  country  people  as 
Hermant's  picture  of  the  bourgeois  of  Paris  is 
trifling.     The  hamlet  of  5  or  6  houses  is  an  out- 

^  Le  Mariage  de  Lison  (d  Vusage  des  comiatants  et 
des  jeunes  fiUes  sans  dot),  bv  the  same  author  was  pub- 
lished in  1018,  and  Le  Capitaine,  in  1919.  The  latter 
takes  up  many  ideas  already  discussed  in  Meditations 
dans  la  TrancMe. 

373 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

of-the-way  place  somewhere  in  France ;  the  dull- 
witted  peasants  cannot  grasp,  it  goes  without 
saying,  the  magnitude  and  the  significance  of  the 
struggle, — but  war  brings  about  petty  jealousies 
which  cut  deep  into  the  hearts  of  these  simple 
people;  jealousy  because  the  son  of  one  family 
is  not  called  to  arms  while  the  son  of  another  is ; 
then  jealousy  because  the  family  whose  boy  did 
not  go  does  not  receive  the  25  or  35  sous  in- 
demnity from  the  government ;  then  jealousy  be- 
cause one  boy  is  wounded  and  the  other,  who 
finally  had  to  go  to  war  also,  is  a  prisoner,  and 
again  jealousy  because  when  the  prisoner  re- 
turns, the  wounded  alone  gets  a  compensation 
.  .  .  this  is  gloomy,  but  sober  and  strong  realism. 
Another  novel  of  the  rear  is  M.  Level's  Vivre 
pour  la  Patrie  (1917). 

*         *        * 

Volumes  of  short  stories  are  abundant.  Some 
are  due  to  the  pen  of  the  best  known  writers. 
Let  us  mention  Bazin,  Recits  du  Temps  de  la 
Guerre:  Maeterlinck,  Deux  Contes  {Massacre  des 
Innocents,  Orinologie)  ;  Georges  d'Esparbes, 
Ceux  de  I'An  14  (Yser,  Artois,  Champagne,  Ar- 
gonne,  Verdun)  ;  Pierre  Mille,  En  Croupe  de 
Bellone,  and  Sous  leur  Dictee;  L.  Frapie,  Contes 
de  Guerre;  Marcel  Boulenger,  Sur  un  Tambour; 
374 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

Vallotton,  Les  Lonps;  etc.  Those  tales  were  for 
the  most  part  published  iu  periodicals,  and  later 
issued  in  book  form. 

*  *         * 

•  Less  truly  soldier  stories,  but  still  war-time 
stories,  of  the  romantic  kind,  are  contained  in  the 
volumes  by  some  women  writers:  Colette  Tver's 
Mirabelle  de  Pampelune  (1917)  is  a  very  ex- 
quisite tale — followed  by  some  others — of  a 
woman  who  marries  a  soldier  when  he  returns 
blinded  from  the  war.  Camille  Mayran's  Ilis- 
toire  de  Gotton  Connixloo,  suivie  de  L'Ouhliee, 
was  honored,  in  1918,  with  the  Prix  du  Roman  of 
the  French  Academy.  The  authoress  Mile,  de 
Saint-Rene  Taillandier  is  a  grand  niece  of  Taine. 

*  *         * 

TVe  ought  to  say  a  word  about  two  or  three 
"problem"  novels. 

Camille  Audigier's  La  Terre  qui  nalt  (1917) 
made  a  strong  appeal  to  the  French  public.  It 
shows  the  urgent  need  of  cultivating  the  soil  of 
France  after  the  war — even  during  the  war. 
The  author  gives  the  stor^'  of  the  old  farm  of 
Chaturgne,  in  the  Basses-Alpes,  dilapidated  and 
almost  deserted — which  comes  to  life  again, 
thanks  to  the  energy  of  young  hands  (crowned 
by  the  Academy). 

375 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Then  there  are  the  Bourget  novels,  dealing,  of 
course,  with  the  revival  of  Catholicism  in  France. 
The  first  to  come  out  after  1914  was  Le  Sens 
de  la  Mort.  In  this  we  read  of  a  famous  physi- 
cian, a  skeptic  .  .  .  who  knows  that  his  early 
doom  is  sealed  by  cancer.  Believing  in  no  fu- 
ture life,  he  cannot  bear  the  thought  of  leaving 
behind  him  his  dearly  loved  wife,  who  may  per- 
haps be  united  to  another;  and  he  ventures  to 
suggest  that  she  die  with  liim  when  his  hour 
comes.  She  agrees  to  do  so.  Then  the  war 
breaks  out.  The  doctor  is  called  to  treat  a 
young  relative  of  his  wife,  a  soldier,  who  has 
been  wounded.  This  man  has  always  loved  the 
doctor's  wife,  and  his  patience  in  suffering,  due 
to  his  religious  faith,  touches  her.  The  doctor 
releases  her  from  her  oath,  but  dies  in  despair, 
while  the  young  soldier,  who  also  dies,  passes 
away  serenely  and  in  the  odor  of  sanctity,  as  a 
good  Christian  should.  The  contrast  between 
the  two  ends  wins  back  the  young  woman  to 
the  Christian  faith.  In  the  second,  Lazarine 
(1917),  the  war  is  directly  the  means  of  regen- 
eration of  the  hero:  a  Catholic  girl  at  Toulon 
loves  an  officer  who  is  an  unbeliever;  he  is  di- 
vorced, but  his  former  wife,  a  perverse  woman, 
comes  to  claim  him;  he  kills  her;  surmising  a 
376 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

hidden  drama,  the  girl  succeeds  in  preventing 
the  soldier  from  committing  suicide ;  she  converts 
him,  and  he  deliberately  seeks  death  in  a  perilous 
expedition  at  the  front.  Bourget  has  done  more 
original  and  powerful  work  elsewhere.'^ 
♦  *  * 
It  may  surprise  the  reader,  but  quite  a  num- 
ber of  novels  of  a  humorous  nature  have  been  in- 
spired by  the  war.  A  most  exquisite  story  is 
Foley's  Sylvette  et  son  Blesse,  entertaining, 
witty,  cheerful.  The  humorist  G.  de  la  Fou- 
chardiere  published  in  1916,  L'Araignee  du 
Kaiser  (one  knows  the  French  phrase  ''avoir  une 
araignee  au  plafond"),  and  in  1917,  he  pub- 
lished Scipion  Pegoulade — a  sort  of  Tartarin  of 
the  Great  War.  Another  volume  of  the  same 
order  is  Ch.  Derenne's  Cassinou  va-t-en  guerre 
( 1918 ) ,  illustrated.  Humorous  short  stories  will 
be  found  in  Mac  Orlan's  Les  Poissons  morts, — 
illustrated  by  Gus  Bofa  (1917).  Albert  Bois- 
siere has  won  success  with  L' extravagant  Teddy 

7  The  story  elicited  the  usual  praise  and  criticism 
which  other  Catholic  novels  had  elicited.  It  was  severely 
judged  by  Capitaine  Delvert,  Ilistoire  d'une  Compagnie, 
mentioned  above.  This  criticism  coming  from  a  soldier 
is  worth  reading  (p.  13.5ir.).  His  point  is  that  there 
were  as  good  soldiers,  to  say  the  least,  among  those  who 
simply  had  "la  religion  de  la  Patrie"  as  among  the 
"croyants"  with  Bourget's  connotation  of  the  term. 
377 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

de  la  Croix  Rouge  Anglaise  (1917),  and  Le 
Neveu  de  I'Oncle  Sam,  which,  however,  has  only 
a  distant  connection  with  the  war.  Pierre 
Causse-Mael,  writes  Jolycoeur,  Tommy  Canadien 
(1918).  Although  not  strictly  belonging  to  the 
"genre"  novel,  we  may  mention  Andre  Maurois, 
Les  Silences  du  Colonel  Bramble  (1918),  de- 
scribing wittily  the  English  and  the  French 
point  of  view  in  life ;  and  M.  Dekobra  's  Sammy, 
volontaire  Americain  (1918),  an  amusing  pic- 
ture of  the  American  boy  in  France. 

Andre  Billy's  La  Malahe  is  a  funny  story  of  a 
plant  that  has  the  power  of  reviving  memories; 
by  means  of  it  the  author  evokes  all  the  joys  of 
life  in  time  of  peace. 

Then  there  is  the  little  book  by  the  famous 
French  lawyer,  Ch.-M.  Chenu,  TotocJie,  Prison- 
nier  de  Guerre — the  diary  of  a  German  dog 
which,  having  taken  refuge  in  the  allied  lines, 
becomes  the  mascot  of  a  tank  crew,  is  wounded, 
sent  to  an  ambulance  in  the  rear,  then  to  a  hos- 
pital, and  finally  he  is  pensioned  and  happily 
married.  (Colette  Yver  has  a  dog  story  also, 
Nenette,  in  her  volume,  Mirahelle  de  Pampe- 
lune.) 

A  disconcerting  but  quite  entertaining  mix- 
ture of  realities  and  fantastic  imagination  will 
378 


WAR-TIME  FICTION 

be  found  in  the  well  known  series  by  Gaston  Le- 
roux,  Les  Aventures  extraordinaires  de  Joseph 
Rouletahille  a  la  Guerre.  Rouletabille  is  a 
young  Parisian  reporter,  and  also  a  most  clever 
detective.  For  instance,  in  the  last  volume  of 
the  series,  Rouletabille  chez  Krupp  (1919),  he 
uncovers  in  the  great  Essen  ammunition  plant  a 
formidable  plot  by  which  Paris  was  simply  to  be 
leveled  to  the  ground. 

*         *         # 

Shall  we  mention  some  stories  with  children  as 
heroes?  F.  Boutet,  in  Victor  et  ses  Amis 
(1917),  writes  of  boys  doing  their  bit  whenever 
they  can  to  help  win  the  war.  The  books  by 
Machard  and  by  the  exquisite  draftsman  of 
Gosses  et  Bonshommes,  Poulbot,  had  a  well  de- 
served success;  first  La  Guerre  des  Momes  and 
later  Le  Massacre  des  Innocents,  Legende  des 
Temps  de  Guerre  (a  Gotha  raid,  with  three  lit- 
tle children  killed,  who  meet  again  in  heaven). 
(Compare  with  Claudel's  Mystery  play,  La  Nuit 
de  Noel  1914,  mentioned  above.)  Add  Gsell  et 
Poulbot,  Les  Gosses  dans  les  Ruines.  As  to 
Machard 's  Bout  de  Bibi,  Enfant  terrible  (1918) 
it  is  in  an  entirely  different  vein  .  .  .   (gaulois). 


379 


EPILOGUE 

As  early  in  the  war  as  the  winter  of  1914- 
1915,  writers  began  to  speculate  upon  the  nature 
of  the  after- war  literature. 

Their  prophecies,  which  at  first  were  very  dog- 
matic, became  more  and  more  uncertain  as 
months  and  years  elapsed,  until  gradually  they 
were  discontinued  altogether  when  it  became  evi- 
dent how  deeply  the  war  had  cut  into  human 
affairs  and  how  hazardous,  therefore,  any  state- 
ment regarding  the  future  must  necessarily  be.^ 

The  cessation  of  hostilities  has  thrown  no  new 
light  upon  the  subject,  so  that  it  is  as  useless  as 
ever  to  attempt  a  description  of  the  spirit  of  the 
literature  of  to-morrow. 

1  From  the  beginning,  and  so  long  as  they  lasted,  those 
prognostics  were  rather  commonplace,  even  when  signed 
by  men  of  established  repute:  see  Paul  Adam,  La  Lit- 
terature  et  la  Guerre  (1910)  ;  cf.  our  chapter  on  "Eco- 
nomic Democratism";  Giraud,  l^e  Miracle  Frati^ais;  cf. 
our  reference  at  the  end  of  our  discussion  of  Neo-Cathol- 
icism;  Alfred  Mortier's  IJramaturgie  de  Paris  (1917), 
the  end  of  our  chapter  on  the  Stage  and  the  War.  A 
reasonable  article  by  Camille  Mauclair,  Le  Front  Litter- 
aire  de  Demain,  in  La  Semaine  Littdraire  (Geneve),  Oc- 
tober 2nd,  1915.  In  April,  1919,  La  Renaissance  pub- 
lished a  series  of  letters  by  eminent  authors,  on  post-war 
literature.  Tliey  are  as  non-relevant  as  most  of  the  rest. 
381 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

The  preceding  pages,  however,  bring  out  a  fact 
that  bears  upon  the  problem,  and  that  it  might 
be  well  to  recall :  The  first  short  period  of  high 
emotional  exaltation  was  followed  by  a  longer 
period  of  keen  observation  of  events,  and  also  of 
intense  intellectual  tension  and  activity;  that 
second  period  was  in  its  turn  followed  by  one  of 
marked  decline  of  interest  in  the  war  or  in  war 
problems.  And  this  is  true  of  the  whole  field  of 
literature:  War  experiences  ceased,  to  a  great 
extent,  to  inspire  poets ;  war  recollections  ceased 
to  be  read  so  eagerly  by  the  public ;  and,  if  some 
novelists,  for  conscience'  sake,  continued  to  make 
warriors  of  their  heroes,  they  laid  little  stress  on 
their  heroic  deeds;  many  novelists,  indeed,  ig- 
nored the  war  altogether.  The  same  obtained,  to 
even  a  greater  degree,  on  the  stage.- 

This  diminution  of  interest  in  war  literature, 
at  a  time  when  the  prospects  of  a  final  victory 
were  increasing,  appears  to  us  as  a  phenomenon 
of  mental  fatigue.  It  is  incontestable  that  in 
the  spring  of  1917  and  afterwards,  the  people 
of  France  still  realized  the  enormous  importance 

2  That  phenomenon  of  decreasing  interest  is  most 
clearly  visible  when  one  reads  an  account  of  the  literary 
output  of  war  literature  year  by  year,  such  for  instance, 
as  we  have  given  in  our  articles  in  the  ISlew  International 
Year-Book. 

382 


EPILOGUE 

of  the  years  that  they  had  just  lived  through, 
and  that  they  appreciated  more  than  ever  the 
meaning  of  victory.  Indeed  they  showed  as 
much  determination  as  ever  in  the  prosecution  of 
the  war,  bending  all  their  energies  to  the  effort 
which  was  to  bring  about  the  final  triumph. 
But,  after  three  years  of  incessant  struggle,  their 
strength  was  diminished,  and  they  had  none  to 
give  to  mere  thoughts  about  the  war  unless  these 
clearly  had  a  practical  bearing  on  the  issue.  On 
the  other  hand,  any  cheerful  reading  which  re- 
lieved them,  in  hours  of  relaxation,  from  the  ob- 
session of  the  war,  was  recuperative. 

This  is  all  easy  to  understand.  But  now,  not 
only  does  that  state  of  relative  exhaustion  ex- 
plain the  state  of  affairs  during  the  last  year  of 
the  war;  it  must  also  be  taken  into  account  in 
thinking  of  the  future:  for  the  nervous  strain 
would  not  cease  all  at  once  with  the  signing  of 
the  armistice,  nor  even  with  the  signing  of  the 
peace.  Indeed,  it  is  likely  to  be  felt  more  and 
more  for  a  long  period  of  time.  Can  we  not  ob- 
serve even  in  the  finest  writers  of  the  war  indis- 
putable signs  of  that  exhaustion?  After  Gas- 
pard,  Benjamin  has  produced  more  and  more  in- 
different books;  Barbusse  has  repeated  himself 
after  Le  Feu,  in  Clarte;  Duhamel  himself  may 
383 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

have  rounded  up  his  philosophy  as  he  continued 
producing  war  books;  after  Vie  des  Martyrs,  he 
did  not  improve  in  artistic  beauty ;  Porche,  once 
the  vigorous  singer  of  L' Arret  sur  la  Marne,  ends 
in  the  roguishness  of  Les  Butors  et  la  Finette  and 
La  Fille  aux  Joues  Roses;  and  others  could  be 
added  to  the  list,  Genevoix,  Pericard,  Massis, 
etc. 

To  expect,  therefore,  either  in  the  realm  of 
literature  or  in  that  of  philosophy,  before  a  long 
period  of  recuperation  and  restoration  of  nor- 
mal conditions,  a  great  constructive  inspiration 
as  the  result  of  the  stirring  up  of  new  ideas  by 
the  war,  would  certainly  mean  disillusionment. 

The  history  of  past  wars  and  their  influence 
upon  literature  supports  that  view.  The  Italian 
wars,  commenced  by  Charles  VIII  of  France  in 
1483  and  continued  by  his  successors,  were  to 
bring  to  France  the  seeds  of  the  French  Renais- 
sance and  of  French  Classicism.  But  that  seed 
did  not  come  to  full  fruition  until  nearly  two 
centuries  later.  Even  le  Cid  is  only  of  1636,  and 
Andromaque  and  Tartuffe  were  not  ready  till 
1667.  One  may  argue  that  the  politico-religious 
wars  complicated  matters  and  retarded  the 
progress  of  the  arts  and  of  literature, — and  the 
contention  would  be  to  some  extent  valid  —  but 
384 


EPILOGUE 

even  if  one  allows  a  century  for  contingencies 
due  to  that  cause,  there  would  still  remain  an- 
other century  to  be  accounted  for.  Moreover, 
after  the  next  great  crisis,  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Napoleonic  wars,  internal  troubles 
were  not  so  great  as  to  retard  artistic  develop- 
ment, and  nevertheless  France  was  practically 
voiceless  for  a  whole  generation.  Though  Cha- 
teaubriand and  Madame  de  Stael  belong  to  the 
period  of  general  struggle,  the  Romantic  move- 
ment in  literature  and  in  art  did  not  materialize 
until  the  succeeding  generation.  Indeed  Cha- 
teaubriand himself  claimed  to  the  end  that  he 
was  the  supporter  of  the  throne  and  altar,  i.e.,  of 
the  old  order  of  things,  and  he  never  became 
conscious  that  his  writings  had  in  them  the  seed 
of  the  new  order  of  things.^  Lamartine's  Medi- 
tations were  still  a  precocious  product  in  1819 ; 
and  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  and  Hernani  did  not 
appear  till  1830:  and  Alfred  de  Musset's  Con- 
fessions d'un  Enfant  du  Siecle  is  of  1836;  more- 
over, there  is  question  whether  we  should  not 
consider  the  whole  Romantic  Movement  as  only 
a  transition  from  Classicism  to  the  really  new 

3  Even  a  generation  later  Balzac's  case  was  a  repeti- 
tion  of   that   of   Chateaubriand.     Balzac    the    father    of 
realism  was  a  convinced  reactionarv  in  social  matters. 
385 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

literary  era  of  Realism  which  begins  with  Bal- 
zac {Comedie  Humaine,  1830  sq.),  continues 
through  Flaubert  {Madame  B ovary,  1857),  and 
blooms  only  with  Zola's  Bougon-Macquart 
(1871-92). 

It  is  to  such  great  events  as  the  Renaissance 
and  the  French  Revolution  that  the  Great  War 
must  be  compared.  It  would  be  absurd  to  com- 
pare it  to  the  Franco-Prussian  war  which  was 
only  an  episode  in  the  history  of  the  ambitions  of 
Prussia,  and  by  which  the  literary  evolution  was 
not  in  the  least  disturbed.  The  Naturalist 
movement  had  just  started  with  Flaubert  and 
the  brothers  Goncourt,  and  Zola  continued  it  as 
if  nothing  had  happened. 

On  the  other  hand,  modern  progress  undoubt- 
edly favors  rapid  developments.  Fifteen  cen- 
turies elapsed  between  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  era  and  the  Renaissance;  there  were 
only  three  centuries  between  the  Renaissance 
and  the  French  Revolution,  and  only  a  century 
and  a  quarter  elapsed  between  the  Revolution  and 
the  Great  War.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  be- 
lieve that  science  will  help  us  to  recover  more 
rapidly  from  the  formidable  shock  than  many 
seem  inclined  to  believe.  It  must  not  be  forgot- 
386 


EPILOGUE 

ten  either  that  America  remained  practically  un- 
touched by  the  storm,  and  is  destined  to  play  a 
very  important  part  during  the  period  of  recu- 
peration. Therefore,  the  lapse  of  time  between 
the  war  and  the  interpretation  thereof  by  poets 
and  thinkers  need  not  be  so  long  as  it  would  have 
been  in  the  past.  Indeed,  attempts  are  actually 
being  made  in  France  to  link  up  directly  post- 
war literature  with  pre-war  literature.  This  is 
the  case  with  that  group  of  young  French  writ- 
ers who  gather  about  the  standard  of  the  Nou- 
velle  Revue  Frangaise.  They  have  tried  bravely 
to  keep  alive  the  spirit  that  animated  them  be- 
fore 1914.  It  remains  to  be  seen  whether  the 
same  review-cover  will  actually  "cover"  the 
same  philosophical  tendencies  as  at  the  time 
when  the  war  interrupted  publication.* 

4  Henri  Bachelin  believes  that  it  will  be  possible  to 
take  up  the  work  at  the  point  at  which  it  liad  to  be  in- 
terrupted in  1914.  In  his  suggestive  article  in  La 
Grande  Revue  (Sept.,  1918),  he  argues  that  the  France 
which  was  destined  to  conquer  in  1914  is  still  alive. 
.  .  .  True!  but  tiie  question  is:  have  the  men  of  France 
undergone  no  change  meanwhile?  Does  not  the  fact, — 
which  is  so  disconcerting  at  first  sight — tliat  there  is  a 
tendency  in  the  novel,  in  poetry,  in  philosophy  and  in  the 
drama,  to  return  to  pre-war  ideas,  merely  betray  too 
great  a  lassitude  of  mind  to  permit  of  tiie  formulating 
of  the  new  doctrine  of  to-morrow,  rather  than  a  de- 
liberate desire  that  nothing  should  be  changed?  Is  it 
not  simply  a  provisional  compromise,  a  "going  through 
the  motions"  as  in  the  past,  until  rest  has  renewed  men's 
387 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

There  is  another  question,  closely  connected 
with  the  preceding,  yet  differing  from  it,  in  that 
it  is  more  concrete:  Has  the  war  inspired  any 
great  work  of  art,  any  masterpiece  comparable 
to  the  Ilmd,  the  Roland,  les  Tragiques,  or  La 
Legende  des  Sieclesf  Of  course,  it  has  not. 
The  conditions  favorable  to  the  production  of 
such  works  have  not  yet  existed ;  neither  must  we 
expect  that  masterpiece  in  the  immediate  future, 
nor  for  some  time  to  come.  Indeed,  it  may 
never  be  produced. 

The  heroes  of  Troy  and  of  Rome  were  not  sung 
in  a  way  worthy  of  them  until  history  had  passed 
into  legend.  It  was  only  then  that  the  Iliad  and 
the  JEneid  could  be  written.  Charlemagne  and 
his  peers  had  to  wait  three  centuries  for  the  Song 
of  Roland  and  the  Clianson  de  Guillaume.  As 
for  Alexander  and  CiEsar  and  Joan  of  Arc,  they 
have  never  had  their  Homer,  their  Virgil  or 
their  Turoldus.  Even  in  modern  times,  when, 
as  we  have  just  pointed  out,  world  affairs  may 
resume  their  normal  course  more  rapidly,  and 
intellectual,  developments  follow  great  crises 
more  closely,  Napoleon  and  his  Grand  Army  did 

energy  and  restored  to  them  the  ambition  to  think?     It 
would   be    strange    indeed, — not   to    say   tragic, — if    the 
Great  War  was  to  leave  no  trace  either  now  or  later,  on 
human  thought,  aspirations,  and  art. 
388 


EPILOGUE 

not  conquer  a  place  in  the  field  of  literature  until 
nearly  half  a  century  after  their  victories, . 
Their  celebration  was  rather  a  slow  and  gradual 
affair.  Lui  and  I'Ode  a  la  Colonne  are  of  1832; 
Le  Retour  de  VEmtpereur,  of  1840;  Les  Chdti- 
ments  of  1853 ;  and  la  Legende  des  Siecles  of  1859 
and  subsequent  years.  It  was  more  than  a  cen- 
tury after  the  young  Buonaparte  had  achieved 
his  first  feat  of  arms  at  Toulon  (179.'?)  that  Ros- 
tand's L'Aiglon  was  applauded  by  the  whole 
world  (1900). 

What  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war?  After  a 
full  decade  of  silence  the  French  began  to  intro- 
duce war  into  literature,  but  the  heroes  of  Froe- 
schwiller  and  Reichshoft'en,  of  Gravelotte  and  of 
Saint-Privat,  and  the  heroes  of  Sedan — who  re- 
mind one  of  the  heroes  of  Roncevaux — came  to 
their  own  only  in  Zola's  La  Dehdcle  (1892),  and 
in  line  Epoque  of  the  Brothers  Margueritte 
(1897-1902). 

The  heroes  of  the  Great  War,  the  heroes  of 
the  Marne  and  of  the  Yser,  and  those  of  Verdun 
and  of  the  Somme,  and  of  the  Second  Marne, 
can  afford  to  wait.  One  thing  that  nobody  can 
doubt  even  to-day  is  that  if  he  does  appear,  the 
Bard  of  the  Great  War  will  have  ample  and 
glorious  material  to  work  upon,  better  material 
389 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

than  ever  appeared  in  any  world  epoch  before. 
The  real  question  is  whether  a  poet  can  ever 
arise  who  is  equal  to  the  task.  Even  Victor 
Hugo  "le  grand  naaitre  du  verbe  franeais" 
would  scarcely  have  been  great  enough.  .  .  . 
Meanwhile,  we  should  read  again  those  books 
which  tell  of  the  "heros  plus  splendides  que  ceux 
de  Friedland  et  de  Bivoli." 


APPENDIX  I 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 

The  task  of  giving  bibliographical  information  is 
much  simijlified  since  we  can  refer  to  a  work  of  con- 
siderable erudition,  Jean  Vic,  La  Litterature  de  Guerre, 
Manuel  methodique  et  critique  des  publications  de 
langue  frangaise  1914-1918  (Payot).  Of  course,  the 
work  is  not  exhaustive ;  a  work  of  that  sort  can  never 
be;  the  author  has  himself  indicated  some  of  his  omis- 
sions. On  the  otlier  hand  the  inclusion  of  the  litera- 
ture from  the  periodicals — although  one  can  see  how 
often  it  would  be  imperative  not  to  exclude  it — is  a 
risky  thing  because  the  number  of  titles  becomes  so 
enormous;  and  (he  author  has  even  occasionally  in- 
cluded translations;  some  good,  like  Powell's  and 
Gibbs's  volumes  of  war  correspondence,  some  more 
questionable,  like  Graves's  suspicious  recollections  of  a 
spy.  The  arrangement  of  the  material  was  a  difficult 
problem;  a  detailed  Table  of  Contents,  and  two  In- 
dexes (one  by  names,  one  by  subjects)  will  however 
facilitate  reference.  The  method  adopted  of  giving 
at  times  short  descriptions  of  the  publications  men- 
tioned seems  not  to  have  been  very  consistently  fol- 
lowed. But,  as  they  are,  these  volumes  will  render 
invaluable  services,  and  we  cannot  think  of  trying  to 
duplicate  the  lists.  Let  it  suffice  to  say  that  there  are 
few  topics  on  which  the  reader  cannot  find  informa- 
391 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

tion, — sometimes  very  complete,  sometimes  less.  To 
give  an  idea  of  the  variety  of  material,  here  are  a  few 
titles  of  chapters,  picked  out  more  or  less  at  random : 
General  Histories  of  the  war;  Pei'iodical  publications 
of  the  war ;  Philosophy  of  the  war  and  Origin  of  the 
war;  War  and  Religion;  Catholicism;  Protestantism; 
Confessions  of  Premeditation  by  Germans;  Military 
Studies  of  the  war;  Spy  system;  Works  on. 
Diplomacy;  Belgian  Neutrality;  Socialism  and  the 
war;  Accoimts  of  military  events, — by  outsiders, — by 
witnesses;  Belgium  and  the  war;  Trench  warfare; 
Dogs  in  the  war;  Devastated  France;  Joan  of  Arc 
and  the  war;  French  generals;  etc.,  etc. 

Many  readers  will  be  glad  not  to  have  to  choose 
from  this  deluge  of  titles,  and  for  them  we  offer  here 
a  few  hints  that  may  prove  useful : 

They  may  consult : 

A. — In  English: 

The  author's  yearly  contribution  to  the  New  Inter- 
national Year-Book  (Dodd,  Mead  and  Co.),  article 
"French  Literature,"  1914  and  ff.  Also  a  special 
article  "The  Renewal  of  French  Thought  on  the  Eve 
of  the  Great  War,"  in  the  American  Journal  of 
Psychology,  June,  1916  (which,  however,  emphasizes 
especially  a  wave  of  religious  inspiration  in  France 
before  the  war) . 

In  the  New  York  Times  Book  Review  of  Sunday, 
Oct.  8,  1916,  pp.  338,  411,  an  article  by  Jean  A. 
Picard,  "War's  Influence  on  French  Literature,"  en- 
cumbered with  titles,  rather  indiscriminately  selected, 
392 


APPENDICES 

not  classified,  and,  of  course,  stopping  at  date  of  pub- 
lication. 

B. — In  Frencli : 

F.  Baldensperger,  Litterature  d' Ava/nt-Guerre. 
(Payot,  1919.) 

Albert  Schinz,  "Le  Roman  Militaire  en  France  de 
1870  a  1914,  in  Publications  of  the  Modern  Language 
Association  of  America,  March,  1919. 

Jean  Vic,  op.  cit.  (especially  pp.  xviii-xix  and  pp. 
15-16). 

Catalogue — Publications  de  la  Guerre  (Paris,  Cercle 
de  la  Librairie)  ;  Tome  I,  1914-15,  Tome  II,  1916,  etc., 
each  volume  has  about  160  pages. 

Les  Livres  de  la  Guerre,  Aout,  1914 — Aout,  1916, 
Preface  en  vers  de  E.  Rostand.  (7  Rue  de  Lille,  180 
pages.)  There  one  will  find  much  about  all  kinds  of 
topics;  various  battles,  destroyed  cities  and  cathedrals, 
spies,  aviation,  "Kultur,"  prisoners,  etc.  To  continue 
this  publication,  which  is  now  out  of  print,  there  were 
issued  a  few  numbei's  of  Le  Livre  dont  on  parle,  a 
selected  list  which  was  to  appear  whenever  there  was 
material  enough  for  a  new  installment.  This  also  was 
published  at  Rue  de  Lille,  7;  as  also,  now,  the 
Catalogue  Mensuel  de  la  Librairie  Frangaise — which 
is,  of  course,  much  more  complete.^ 

Many  periodicals  have  published  accounts  of  war 
books,  as  they  came  out.  Among  them  one  ought  to 
point  out  as  of  special  value,  the  pages  published  bi- 

1  The  Bulletin  Bibliographique,  issued  by  the  Societe 
d'Exportation  des  Editeurs  Francais — about  thirty  of  the 
leading    publishing    firms     (13    Rue    de    Tournon) — for 
purely  advertising  purposes,  is  poorly  gotten  up. 
393 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

monthly  by  the  Mercure  de  France  under  the  title: 
"Ouvrages  sur  la  Guerre  actuelle." 

Finally,  let  us  make  room  here  for  the  Bulletin  des 
Ecrivains  de  1914,  1915,  1916,  1917,  1918,  1919,  pub- 
lished by  three  young  writers,  R.  Bizet,  F.  Divoire,  and 
G.  Picard,  and  which  was  sent  free  to  all  the  writers 
in  the  service.  Forty-nine  issues  came  out,  the  last 
one,  in  August,  1919,  devoted  entirely  to  the  authors 
who  died  on  the  field  of  honor. 

With  some  exceptions,  works  belonging  to  Propa- 
ganda war-collections  have  not  been  mentioned  in  this 
volume.  But  let  it  be  said  that  some  of  those  booklets 
are  very  admirable.  Here  are  the  names  of  some  of 
the  best  of  these  collections:  Alcan,  Publications  sur 
la  guerre  de  1914-1918;  Colin,  Etudes  et  Documents 
sur  la  guerre  (in  this  collection  came  out  J.  Bedier's 
well  known  pamphlet  Les  Crimes  allemands  d'apres 
des  Temoignages  allemands);  Berger-Levrault,  Lib- 
rairie  Militaire  (with  two  series,  Pages  d'Histoire  and 
Encyclopedic  de  la  Guerre);  Bloud  et  Gay,  Pages 
actuelles  (Catholic)  ;  Cres  et  Cie,  Collection  Bellum; 
Perrin  et  Cie,  Pour  la  Verite  (little  volumes  of  about 
50  pages,  by  members  of  the  "Institute"  or  Five 
Academies  of  France.  The  first  number  is  by  Pierre 
Lamy,  the  late  Secretaire  perpetuel  of  the  French 
Academy,  L'Institut  et  la  Guerre). 

For  people  who  are  g-uided  in  their  choice  by  the 
names  of  publishers,  we  mention  the  following  firms 
which  can  usually  be  relied  upon  to  issue  only  works 
of  real  value:  Alcan,  Bailliere,  Belin,  Berger- 
Levrault,  Bloud  et  Gay,  Boecard,  Caiman-Levy,  Chape- 
lot,  Charpentier,  Champion,  Colin,  Cres,  Delagrave, 
394 


APPENDICES 

Emile-Paul,  Fasquelle,  Firaiin-Didot,  Fischbacher, 
Flammarion,  Grasset,  Haehctte,  Laroiisse,  Ledere, 
Lemerre,  ]\Iercure  de  France,  Michel,  Nilsson,  Nourry, 
Nouvelle  Librairie  Nationale,  Nouvelle  Revue  Fran- 
eaise,  Ollendorff,  Payot,  Perrin,  Plon-Nourrit,  Renais- 
sance du  Livre,  Sansot,  Societe  d'Edition,  Societe 
FranQaise  d'lmprimerie  et  de  Librairie. 


APPENDIX  II 

DOCUMENTS  RELATIVE  TO  THE  WAR 

(Outside    of    the    Domain    of    Literature,    but    comple- 
mentary to  it) 

Practically  all  the  technical  bibliographical  indica- 
tions are  omitted,  as  they  can  easily  be  found — if 
needed — in  consulting-  the  work  of  Jean  Vic,  La 
Litterature  de  la  Guerre,  already  referred  to,  or,  even 
better,  the  wery  convenient  annual  Tables  of  the 
Memorial  de  la  Librairie  Frangaise  (Paris,  Librairie 
H.  Le  Soudier,  174  Boulevard  Saint-Germain).  For 
before  1900,  see  Bibliographie  Frangaise,  Ire  serie,  10 
volumes;  from  1900-1909,  2de  serie,  Tome  I,  1900- 
1904,  Tome  II,  1905-1909,  etc.  These  tables  contain 
in  one  alphabetical  series,  names  of  authors,  names  of 
titles,  and  names  of  topics. 

TouTAiN,  L'Europe  et  la  France  de  1871-1914. 
Gauvain,    L'Europe    avant    la    Guerre,    1    vol. — 

Origines    de    la    Guerre    Europeenne,    1    vol. 

(CoUn). 
Roches,     Manuel     des     Origines     de     la     Guerre 

(Bossard). 

Histoire  de  la  Guerre  par  le  Bulletin  des  Armies  de 

la  Eepublique  (Hachette). 
Les  Communiques  offlciels  depuis  la  Declaration  de 

la  Guerre  (Berger-Levrault). 
397 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Notre  Epopee,  Becits  officiels  de  Comhattants  (Soe. 

Frangaise  d'Imprimerie  et  de  Librairie). 
La  Guerre,  Documents  de  la  Section  photographique 

(Colin). 

General   Malleterre,  Etudes   et  Impressions  de 

Guerre.     En    serie,   avec    Cartes   et   Tableaux. 

5  vol. 
Joseph  Reinach,  La  Guerre  de  1914-1918,  et  les 

Commentaires  de  Polyhe.     17  series. 
General  Balat,  La  Grande  Guerre  sur  le  Front 

occidental.     3  vol.  out. 
General  Berthaut,  Les  grandes  Batailles  de  la 

Guerre  de  la  Marne  a  la  Mer  du  Nord.     Vue 

d' ensemble    sur    les    operations    militaires    de 

1914-1918. 
L.  Brossolette,  Histoire  de  la  Grande  Guerre.     20 

Cartes,  un  tableau  synehronique  et  un  index  (1 

volume). 
Victor    Giraud,    Histoire    de    la    Grande    Guerre. 

5  fascicules. 

P.  Crokaert,  L'immortelle  Melee,  Essai  sur  I'J^po- 

pee  militaire  beige. 
Pierre  Dauzat,  Guerre  de  1914.     Be  Liege  a  la 

Marne.     (Avec  Croquis  et  Cartes.) 

On  the  first  Battle  of  the  Marne,  see  Vic,  op.  cit. 
Also,  G.  Babin,  La  Bataille  de  la  Marne,  6-12 
sept.  1914.     Esquisse  d'un  Tableau  d' ensemble. 

Gervais-Couetellemont,  La  Bataille  de  I'Ourcq. 

Le  Gopfic,  Les  Marais  de  Saint-Gond,  Histoire  de 
I'armee  Foch  a  la  Bataille  de  la  Marne, 
398 


APPENDICES 

On  the  Battle  of  the  Yser,  see  Vie,  op.  cit.  The 
best  known  accounts  are: 

L.   Madelin,   La  Melee   des   Flandres.     L'Yser   et 

Ypres  (avec  3  cartes). 
Le  Gopfic,  Dixytiude.     Un  chapitre  de  I'Histoire  des 

Fusiliers    marins,    7    oct.    au    10   nov.    1911. — 

Steenstraete,   Un  2°   chapitre — St.   Georges  et 

Nieuport,  suite  et  fin. 
G.  Le  Bail,  La  Brigade  des  Jean  Gouin.     Ilistoire 

documentee  et  anecdotique  des  fusiliers  marins 

de  Dixmude  d'apres  des  documents  originaux  et 

d^s  recits  de  combattants. 
CoMDT  Willy  Breton,  Les  Combats  de  Steenstraat 

(avril-mai   1915)  ;    une   page   glorieuse   de    la 

resistance  beige. 
L.    BocQUART    ET    E.    HosTEN,    Un   Fragment    de 

VEpopee  Senegalaise.     Les  Tirailleurs  noirs  de 

I'Yser. 

On  the  Battle  of  Verdun :     See  Vic,  op.  cit. 
Henri   Dugard,  La    Victoire  de    Verdun    (2G  fev. 

1916-13,  nov.  1917). 
JoLLivET,  L'Epopee  de  Verdun. 
H.  Bordeaux,  Les  derniers  Jours  dii  Fort  de  Vaux. 

— Les  Captifs  delivres. 

For  other  battles  see  Vic,  op.  cit.,  and  general 
works  mentioned  above;  e.  g.,  Gen.  Malleterre's 
Etudes  et  Impressions,  volume  V.  La  BataiUe  de  Li- 
beration et  de  Victoire;  Jean  de  Pierrefeu,  La  Seconde 
BataiUe  de  la  Marne;  etc. 


399 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Military  life : 

Marcel  Prevost,  D'un  Poste  de  Commandement  (La 

fagon  de  preparer  une  bataille — L'Ailette). 
F.    DE    Tessan,    Quand   on   se   bat.     (Episodes   to 

illustrate   the   various    sei'vices :     La    bataille ; 

agents    de    liaison;    mitrailleuses;    grenadiers; 

pionniers  et  sapeurs ;  erapouillots ;  avions ;  auto- 
mobiles; etc.) 
Capitaine  Danrit,  La  Guerre  souterraine  (Mining 

and  sapping). 
Anonymous,  La   Vie  des  Tranchees    (Berger-Lev- 

rault)    (Building  of  trenches,  life  in  trenches). 
Daniel   Mornet,   Tranchees   de    Verdun    (Berger- 

Levrault). 
See  also  Vic,  op.  eit.,  p.  ISO,  253-5. 

Joseph  Bedier,  L'Infanterie. 
'Fr.  Marbre,  Notre  Artillerie. 
Lieutenant    Lestringuez,    Les    Chars    d'Assaut 

Frangais  pendant  la  Guerre. 
Capitaine  Langevin,  Les  Cavaliers  de  France. 
Raymond    Lestonnat,    L'A.B.C.    de     la    Guerre 

navale. 
Amiral  Degouy,  Guerre  Navale  et  Offensive. 
Commandant  Vedel,  Nos  Mdrins  a  la  Guerre,  sur 

Mer  et  sur   Terre. — Sur  nos  Fronts  de  Mer. 
Crouvezier,  Les  Guerres  aeriennes.     Le  Role  de  la 

Cinquieme  Arme. 
Ch.  Lafon,  Les  Armies  Aeriennes  modernes,  France 

et  Etr anger, 
''La  Cigogne"   (J.  Duval),  L'Armee  de  I'Air. 
P.  BoNNEFON,  Le  Premier  As,  Pegoud. 
400 


APPENDICES 

H.    Bordeaux,    Le    Chevalier    de    I'Air,    Georges 

Guynemer. 
M.  Nadaud,  Guynemer. 
ViALLET     et     MORTAXE,     Quelques    grands     Duels 

aeriens. 

For  the  Psychology  of  the  soldier,  see  Yic,  op.  cit. 
pp.  251-2.  Also  indications  in  Part  I,  chap,  II,  of 
this  book,  and  the  followina:  works : 

Capitaine  Z ,  L'Armee  de  la  Guerre. — L'Armee 

de   1917. — L'Ojficier   et   le   Soldat   Frangais. — 
Vertus  guerrieres. 

E.  Meyer,    Autour    de    la    Guerre.     Essais    de 
Psychologie  militaire. 

Dr.  L.  Huot  et  Dr.  P.  Voivenel,  Le  Courage. — Le 

Cafard. — Psychologie  du  Soldat. 
G.  Dumas,  Troubles  mentaux  et  Troubles  nerveux 

de  Guerre. 

Several  books  on  military  terms : 

AxoNYMOUS,  Dictionnaire  des  Termes  militaires  et 

del' Argot  des  Poilus  (publ.  by  Larousse). 
Anonymous,  Le  Frangais   tel   que  le  parlent  nos 

Tirailleurs    SenegaUm    (mentioned    in    Catal. 

mensuel  de  libr.  fr.  Juillet,  1917). 
A.    Dauzat,    U Argot    de    la    Guerre    d'apres    une 

Enquete  aupres  des  Officiers  et  Soldats. 

F.  Dechelette,  L' Argot  des  Poilus.     Dictionnaire 

humoristique  et  philosophique  du  Langage  des 
Soldats  de  la  Grande  Guerre  de  1914. 

G.  EsNAULT,  Le  Poilu  tel  qu'il  se  parle.     Diction- 

naire des  Termes  populaires  reeents  et  neufs 
401 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OP  THE  GREAT  WAR 

employes  aux  Armies  en  1914-1918,  Studies 
dans  leur  Etymologie,  leur  Developpement  et 
leur  Usage. 

L.  Sainean,  L'Argot  des  Tranchees  d'apres  les 
lettres  des  Poilus  et  les  Journaux  du  Front. 
(This  av;thor  has  since  published  several  com- 
plementary articles  in  the  Mercure  de  France.) 

In  Franconi,  Tin  Tel  de  VArmee  Frangaise  (1918), 
see  Chapter  on  Exegese  de  certaines  Phrases 
militaires. 

In  M.  Nadaud,  En  plein  Vol,  there  is  in  an  Appen- 
dix, a  catalogue  of  familiar  terms  used  by 
French  aviators. 

See  also  various  articles  in  L'Intermediaire  des 
Chercheurs. 

On  linguistic  problems  in  connection  with  the  war 
see  Ch.  Meillet,  Les  Langues  de  VEurope  nou- 
velle  (1918). 

On  the  question  of  making  "Esperanto"  or  "Ido" 
the  International  language,  or  the  question  of 
adopting  the  "Projet  Chapelier"  (to  make 
French  and  English  the  two  International 
languages),  see  Neio  International  Y ear-Book, 
New  York,  1915  and  ff.,  articles  "International 
Language." 

Paul  Souchon,  Les  Mots  de  la  Guerre  (like  "On  les 
aura,"  "lis  ne  passeront  pas,"  "Debout  les 
Morts,"  etc.,  in  3  parts. 

A.  Mart,  Maximes  des  Grands  Capitaines  Frangais. 

Trogan,  Les  Mots  historiques  du  Pays  de  France. 

Newspapers  at  the  Front,  and  in  Prisoners'  camps: 
402 


APPENDICES 

One  can  find  a  list  of  them  up  to  191G  in  Publica- 
tions sur  la  Guerre  (see  Ai)pendix  I).  Then  an 
article  in  the  Grande  Revue,  Dec,  1916,  by  J.  Bom- 
part,  and  in  the  N.  Y.  Century  Magazine,  Sept.,  1916, 
by  Gelett  Burgess.  One  may  consult  also  Tons  les 
Journaux  du  Front,  Prei'ace  par  P.  Albin, — many 
fae-similes.  Then  the  reproduction  by  Larmandie,  of 
Les  Cent  Numeros  du  Petit  Frangais — fae-simile  edi- 
tion of  a  paper  published  in  a  prisoners'  camp  in 
Germany. 

Special  mention  must  be  made  of  La  Libre  Belgique, 
fondee  le  1  fevrier,  1915,  regulierement  irregulier, 
which  the  editors  succeeded  in  publishing  right  in 
invaded  Belgium.  The  stoiy  of  this  newspaper  epic 
has  been  told  repeatedly  in  various  papers  and 
periodicals;  and  in  the  two  volumes:  P.  Goemaere, 
Histoire  de  la  Libre  Belgique  clandestine  (Bruxelles, 
1919)  ;  Fidelis,  Histoire  merveilleuse  de  La  Libre  Bel- 
gique (1919).  See  also  Marcel,  Mes  Aventures  et  le 
Mystere  de  La  Libre  Belgique,  and  Jean  Massart,  La 
Presse  clandestine  en  Belgique. 

Dr.  Lucien  Graux,  Les  fausses  Nouvelles  de  la 
Grande  Guerre  (3  volumes  out). 

Albert  Pingaud,  La  Guerre  vue  par  les  Combat- 
tants  Allemands  (1918). 

For  Cartoons  see:  L'Esprit  Frangais,  Les  Cari- 
caturistes,  and  L'Esprit  satirique  en  France,  Preface 
d'A.  Alexandre,  two  anthologies  of  the  best  French 
war-cai'icatures  (Berger-Levrault).  John  Grand- 
Carteret,  Caricatures  et  Images  de  la  Guerre,  selected 
and  commented  upon  by  the  well  known  artist,  Vol.  I. 
Kaiser,  Kronprinz  et  Cie,  II.  La  Kultur  et  ses  Hauts- 
403 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

faits.  Also  a  special  album  on  Verdun,  Images  de 
Guerre,  Pieces  historiques,  Estampes,  Curiosites,  350 
images  et  caricatures  frarvgaises,  aHlemandes ,  neutres  et 
enneinies  (12  Planches  hors  texte,  1917). 

A  remarkable  volume  is  that  by  Sem,  Un  Pekin  sur 
le  Front,  with  both  text  and  150  illustrations.  (In 
this  volume  is  found  the  famous  account  of  the  horrors 
of  GerbeviUer,  by  Soeur  Julie.) 

Poulbot's  exquisitely  pathetic  drawmgs  of  children 
during  the  war  are  known  to  all:  Des  Gosses  et  des 
Bonshommes,  Les  Gosses  dans  les  Ruines,  Le  Massacre 
des  Innocents,  etc.  So  are  Hansi's  Man  Village;  His- 
toire  d' Alsace;  Paradis  Tricolore. 


APPENDIX  III 

CATALOGUE,  IN  ALPHABETICAL  ORDER,  OF  SOME 

OF  THE  BEST  WAR  DIARIES  AND 

RECOLLECTIONS 

(Many  have  been  mentioned  in  this  book,  see  Index.) 

Allier,  R.,  In  Memorium    (chiefly  letters  written 

by  him  and   printed  by  the  family  after  the 

young  man's  death). 
Anonymous,    Lettres    d'un    Soldat.     (Preface    by 

Chevrillon.)      (Killed  in  action.) 
Anonymous,  Un  Soldat  de  France.     Lettres  d'un 

Medecin   auxiliaire,  31   juillet-14    avril,  1917. 

(Preface  by  E.  Boutroux.) 
AuBRY,  L'abbe,  Ma  Captivite  en  Allemagne. 
Belmont    (Capitaine),   Lettres    d'un    Ofpcier    de 

Chasseurs  Alpins,  2  aout,  1914-28  dec.  1915. 

(Killed  in  action.) 
Benjamin,  R.,  Sous  le  del  de  France. 
Bertrand,   Lieut.,    Victoire   de  Lorraine.     Camei 

d'un    Officier    de    Dragons — Carnet    de    Route 

d'un  Officier  d' Alpins. 
Blanchet,  E.  L.,  En  Represailles. 
BocQUET,   L.,   et   Hosten,   E.,    Un   Fragment   de 

I'Epopee  Senegalaise.    Les  Tirailleurs  de  I'Yser. 
Boucheron,  G.,  L'Assaut.     L'Argonne  et  Vauquois 

avec  la  lOme  Division^  1914-1915. 
Boudon,  v.,  Avec  Charles  Peguy,  de  la  Lorraine  d 
405 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

la  Marne.     (A  moving  account  of  the  last  days 

of  the  famous  writer,  killed  in  action  on  the 

first  day  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne.) 
BouLEKGER,  J.,  En  EscadrUle. 
BouRGUET,  LiEUT.-CoL.,  L'Auhe  sanglante.     Be  la 

Boiselle    {Oct.  1914)    a  Tahure    {Sept.  1915). 

(Killed  in  action.) 
Breant,   Commandant,  De  VAlsace  a  la  Somme. 

Souvenirs  du  Front  (aout  1914— janv.  1917). 
Breton,  Commandant  Willy,  Un  Regiment  Beige 

en  Campagne.     Les  Pastes  du  2°  Chasseurs-d- 

pied,  aout  1914-Janv.  1915. 
Buteau,  Max,  Tenir.  Recits  de  la  Vie  de  Tranchee. 
Cabanel  Aumonier,  p.  C,  Avec  les  Diables  Bleus. 

I,  Artois,  II.  Vaux. 
Garnets  de  Route  de  Combattants  allemands.     (Un 

Officier  Saxon ;  un  Sous-Officier  Posnanien ;  un 

Rcserviste  Saxon,  publics  par  J.  de  Dampierre, 

Archiviste-paleographe. ) 
Chevoleau,    L'Abbe,    Caporal    (ambulaneier)     au 

90me   d'Infanterie,   by   Emile   Bauman.     (The 

book  is  made   up   chiefly   of  letters  from  the 

priest  who. died  in  action.) 
Christian-Froge,  R.,  Morhange  et  les  Marsouins  en 

Lorraine.     ("Marsouin"  is  the  familiar  name 

given  to  soldiers  of  Colonial  Infantry.) — Les 

Captifs.      (Well  known.) 
Darstein,  General  F.  de.  La  56°  Division  au  Feu. 
Delacommune,    Ch.,    L'Escadrille    des    Eperviers. 

Impressions  vecues  de  Guerre  aerienne. 
Delemer,  a.,  Pelerin  muiile,  Blesse  de   Vauquois 
406 


APPENDICES 

(1918).  (One  of  the  very  few  in  which  the 
author  gives  expression  completely  to  his  de- 
spairing soul.) 

Del\'ERT,  Capitaixe,  Histoire  cl'une  Compagnie 
{Main  de  Massiges,  Champagne,  Verdun). 
— Quelques  Ileros.  Recits  authentiques  de  la 
Grande  Guerre. 

Descubes,  B.,  Mon  Garnet  d' Eclair eur. 

DiDE,  M.,  Ceux  qui  combattent  et  ceux  qui  meurent. 

DiETERLEN,  M.,  Le  Bois  Le  Pretre. 

DoLLE,  A.,  La  Cote  304  (Verdun) .  Accompagne  de 
Souvenirs  d'un  Officier  de  Zouaves. 

DuBARLE,  Capt.  Robert,  Lettres  de  Guerre.  (Killed 
in  action.) 

Dubrulle,  Garnet  de  Route. 

DuFOUR,  J.  J.,  Dans  les  Camps  de  Represailles. 

Duhamel,  G,.  Vie  des  Martyrs. — Civilisation — La 
Possession  du  Monde. 

DuNAN,  M.,  Ete  Bulgare.    tJuillet  1915-oct.  1915. 

DuPONT,  M.,  En  Campagne,  1914-1915.  Impres- 
sions d'un  0/ficier  de  Legere, — Mobilisation, 
Great  Retreat,  Marne,  Descent  of  the  horsemen 
into  the  trenches,  Champagne  and  Artois. 
Awarded  the  Prix  Bodin,  by  the  Academy. 
— L'Attente  (Continuation) — ''attente"  of  vic- 
tory.— Victoire  is  the  3d  vol. 

Duval-Arnould,  v.,  Crapouillots.  Feuilles  d'un 
Garnet  de  Guerre. 

Erlaxde,  a.,  En  Campagne  avec  la  Legion  Etran- 
gere. 

d'Estre,  II.,  D'Oran  a  Arras.  Impressions  d'un 
407 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Officier  d'Afrique,  24  juil.  1914-18  janv.  1915. 

Eteve,  M.,  Lettres  d'un  Combattant.  Aout  1914- 
juil.  1916.     (Killed  in  action.) 

FiERRE,  Jacques,  80,000  Milles  en  Torpilleur. 

Flers,  Robert  de,  Sur  les  Chemins  de  la  Guerre. 

Foley,  Ch.,  La  Vie  de  Guerre  1914-1915,  contee 
par  les  Soldats.  Lettres  recueillies  et  pub- 
liees. 

Fonsagrive,  Lieut.,  En  Batterie.  Verdun,  La 
Somme,  Aisne,  Verdun. 

Franconi,  Vn  Tel  de  VArmee  Frangaise   (Killed). 

Fregeoliere,  Renard  de  la,  pilote  militaire,  A  Tire 
d'Ailes,  Carnet  d'un  Aviateur  et  Souvenirs  d'un 
Prisonnier. 

Fribourg,  Andre,  Croire.     Histoire  d'un  Soldat. 

Gaillet,  Leon,  sous-lieut.  d'Infanterie  Coloniale, 
Coulibaly.  Les  Senegalais  sur  la  Terre  de 
France.     Portraits,  Anecdotes,  Souvenirs. 

Genevoix,  M.,  Sous  Verdun,  aout-oct.  1914. — Nuits 
de  Guerre  (a  continuation  of  the  preceding)  — 
Au  Seuil  des  Guitounes. 

Gentil,  R.,  La  Flamme  Victorieuse. 

GiNiSTY,  P.,  et  Gagneur  (Capt.  M.)',  Histoire  de  la 
Guerre  par  les  Combattants  (published  by  se- 
ries). 

GiRAUDOUX,  J.,  Lectures  pour  une  Ombre. 

GrandMaison,  Impressions  de  Guerre  de  Pretres 
Soldats  (2  series).  Two  well  known  chapters: 
"Dans  la  Fournaise  de  Verdun,"  "Deux  Mar- 
souins." — "marsouin"  is  the  familiar  name 
given  to  soldiers  of  Colonial  Infantry. 
408 


APPENDICES 

Grasset,  Commandant,  Vingt  Jours  de  Guerre  aux 

Temps  heroiques  (the  first  20  days). 
Hassler,  Capitaine,  Ma  Campagne  au  jour  le  jour, 

aout  1914-Dec.  1915. 
Hemard,  J.,  Chez  les  Fritz.     Notes  et  Croquis  de 

Captivite. 
Henches,  Commandant,  A  VEcole  de  la  Guerre. 

(Killed  in  action.) 
Hennebois,  Ch.,  Aux  Mains  de  L'Allemagne.    Jour- 
nal d'un  Grand  Blesse. 
Henriot,  E.,  Garnet  d'un  Dragon  dans  les  Tran- 

chees,  1915-1916. 
Herscher,    Lieut.    E.,    Quelques    Images    de    la 

Guerre. 
HoURTico,  L.,  Recits  et  Reflexions  d'un  Comhattant. 

Aisne,  Champagne,  Verdun. 
JouBAiRE,  Alf.,  Pour  la  France.     Garnet  de  Route 

d'un  Fantassin. 
JuBERT,  R.,  Verdun  {Mars-avril-mai  1916),  Preface 

by   P.    Bourget.     (One   of   the   best.     Author 

killed  in  action.) 
Julia,  Dr.  F.  E.,  Mort  du  Soldat.     (One  of  the 

best  known.) 
JuNOD,  Ed.,  Capitaine  a  la  Legion  Etrangere,  Let- 

tres  et  Souvenirs.     (Killed  in  action.) 
KLadore,   Pierre   de,  Mon   Groupe   d' Auto-canons. 

Souvenirs  d'un  Offlcier  de  Marine,  Sept.  1914- 

Avr.  1916  (tells  of  Ypres). 
La  Bruyere,  Rene,  Deux  Annces  de  Guerre  navale. 
La  Croix,  En  Plein  Ciel. 
Lafond,  G.,  Ma  Mitrailleuse.     Avec  les  Mitrailleurs 

de  la  Coloniale. 

409 


FRENCH  LITERATURE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Lafont,  R.,  Au   Ciel  de   Verdun. 

Lauzanne,    (Stephane),   Feuilles   de  Route   d'un 

Mobilise. 
Laurentin,  Le  Sang  de  France. 
Leaud,  (Alexis),  Spectacles  de  Guerre. 
Le  Bail,  G.,  La  Brigade  des  Jean  Gouin.    Histoire 

documentaire  et  anecdotique  des  Fusiliers  Ma- 

rins   de  Dixmude;  d'apres   des  Documents   et 

Recits  de  Combattants. 
Leleux,  Ch.,  Feuilles  de  Route  d'un  Ambulancier. 
(Lemerre.)     Les  As  peints  par  eux-memes. 
Lery,   Jean,   Bataille   de   la   Foret   de   I'Argonne, 

1915.     Impressions   d'un  Temoin    (very   often 

quoted). 
Letard,  E.,  Trois  Mois  au  Premier  Corps  de  Cava- 

lerie.     Be  Senlis  a  Liege;  de  Liege  a  Paris;  de 

Paris  a  Ypres. 
LiBERMAN,  H.,  Ce  qu'a  vu  un  Officier  de  Chasseurs  a 

pied  2  aout-28  sept.  1914. 
Lieut.  E.  R.    (Capitaine  Tuffrau),  Carnet  d'un 

Combattant  (well  known). 
LiNTiER,  P.,  Ma  Piece.     Avec  une  Batterie  de  75. — 

Le  Tube  1233  (posthumous). 
Madeun,  L.,  Les  Heures  Merveilleuses  d' Alsace  et 

de  Lorraine.     Memoires   et  Recits   de   Guerre 

(1919). 
Malherbe,  H.,  La  Flamme  au  Poing, 
Mallet,   Christophe,   Etapes   et    Combats.     Sou- 
venirs d'un  Cavalier  devenu  Fantassin. 
Marc,  Lieut.,  Notes  d'un  Pilote  disparu,  1916-1917. 
Merlant,  Joachim,  Souvenirs  des  Premiers  Temps 

de  Guerre.     (Died  of  wounds.) 
410 


APPENDICES 

Milan,  Rene,  Vagabonds  de  la  Gloire.    I.   Cam- 

pagnes  d'un   Croiseur,  II.   Trois  Etapes,  III. 

Matelots  aeriens. 
Millet,  F.,  En  Liaison  avec  les  Anglais,     oouve- 

nirs  de  Campagne. 
MoRANE,  Jacques,  Chasseur  de  Bodies.   (Aviation.) 
Nadaud,  M.,  En  plein  Vol. 
Niox,  Leon,  Mes  Six  Evasions. 
Ollivieb,  Capitaine,  Onze  Mois  de  Captivite  dans 

les  Hopitaux  allemands. 
Ouy-Vernazobos,    Ch.,    Journal    d'un    Officier    de 

Cavalerie. 
Pareze,  D.,  Et  nous  .  .  .  les  Marins. 
Paulhan,  Jean,  Le  Guerrier  applique.     (Story  of 

an  "Intellectuel"  who  tries  to  adapt  himself  to 

military  life.) 
Pericard,  J.,  Face  a  Face,  Souvenirs  et  Impressions 

d'un  Soldat  de   la   Grande   Guerre. — Ceux   de 

Verdun. — Debout  les  Morts! 
Pezabd,  a.,  A'om.s  autres  a  Vauquois,  1915-1916. 
PiNGUET,  J.,  Trois  Etapes  de  la  Brigade  des  Fusi- 
liers Marins. 
PiRENNE,    Jacques,    Les     Vainqueurs    de    VTser. 

Preface  par  Verhaeren  et  Vandervelde. 
Prevost,  ALircel,  D'un  Poste  de  Commandement 

(BataiUe  de  I'Ailette). 
Prieur,  Ch.,  De  Dixmude  a  Nieupori.     Journal  de 

Campagne  d'un   Officier  de  Fusiliers   Marins, 

Oct.  1914--mai  1915. 
Raynal,  Commandant,  Journal  du  Fort  de  Vaux. 
Redier,  Ant.,  Meditations  dans  la  Tranchee. 


411 


FRENCH  LITERATUEE  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Eenaud,  Jean,  La   Tranchee  Bouge.     Feuilles  de 

Eoute,  sept.  1914-mars  1916. 
Rene,  H.,  Lorette  une  Bataille  de  12  Mois;  oct.  1914 

-oct.  1915. — Jours  de  Gloire,  Jours  de  Misere. 

Histoire    d'un    Bataillon     (Alsace,     Lorraiue, 

Manie,  Ypres,  Artois,  Verdun)  1914-1916. 
RiOU,  Gaston,  Journal  d'un  Simple  Soldat,  Guerre, 

Captivite,  1914-1915. 
Riviere,  J.,  L'Allemand.     Souvenirs  et  Beflexions 

d'un  Prisonnier  de  Guerre. 
ROBIDET,  E.,  Croquis  de  Guerre. 
RoujON,  Jacques,  Camet  de  Boute. 
DE  Tessan,  F.,  De  Verdun  au  Bhin. 
RuFFiN,     Baron     C,    La    Belgique    hero'ique    et 

vaillante.     Becits    de     Comhattants    recueillis 

par. 
Souvenirs  de   Guerre  d'un  Sous-Officier  allemand., 

1914-1915.     Traduction    publiee   avec   Preface 

de  L.  P.  Alaux  (Alcan  1918). 
Thierry,    A.,      Garnets   de    Guerre.     (End   is   the 

diary  of  a  prisoner.) 
Thomas,    Louis,    Les    Diables    Bleus    pendant    la 

Guerre    de   Delivrance,    1914-1916. — Avec    les 

Chasseurs. 
TuDESQ,     A.,     Les     Compagnons     de     I'Aventure. 

(Nav>'.) 
Variot,   Jean,  La   Croix  de   Caumes.     Documents 

sur  les  Comhattants  du  Bois  Le  Pretre. 
Vassal,    J.,    Dardanelles,    Serbie,    Salonique,    Im- 
pressions et  Souvenirs  de  Chierre,  avril  1915- 

fev.  1916. 
Veaux,  Dr.  G.,  En  suivant  nos  Soldats  de  I'Ouest. 
412 


APPENDICES 

Charleroi,  Guise,  La  Marne,  Reims,  Craonne, 

Arras,  I'Yser. 
ViGNAUD,  J.,  Les  Sauveurs  du  Monde.     ("Contes 

suggeres  par  d'horribles  visions.") 
Warnod,  a.,  Prisonnier  de  Guerre.     Notes  et  cro- 

quis  rapportes  d'Allemagne. 
Wilde,   Robert  de,   Mon   Journal   de   Campagne, 

Liege  et  I'Yser. 
Z  .  .  .,  Capitaine,  L'Armee  de  la  Guerre. — L'Armee 

de  1917. — Vertus  Guerrieres. 
Zavie,  Emile,  Prisonnier  en  Allemagne. 


INDEX 


(Names  of  authors  and  books  mentioned  only  in  the 
three  Appendices  are  not  given  here.) 


Abbe  Constant  in,  3G1. 

Abensour,  22'8. 

Achard  Amedee,  1<S8. 

Action  frangaise,  236  f ., 
25G,  274. 

Adalbert    J.,  228. 

Adam    Juliette,  7. 

Adam  Paul,  8,  275,  379. 

Adjutant  Benoit,  364  f . 

Agadir,  110. 

Agathon  (Tarde  et  Mas- 
sis),  253. 

Agir,  281. 

Aieard  J.,  7,  31,  299, 
329. 

Aiglon  L',  304,  389. 

Ailes  rouges  de  la  Guerre 
Les,  295  ff. 

Alcohol,  289  f,  343. 

Alexandre  A.,  329. 

Allan  M.,  348. 

Allemngne,  9. 

Allemagne  en  France  L', 
238. 

Allemand  U,  213  ff,  254. 

Allemand    d'    Amerique, 


Allier  R.,  96. 
Alphaud,  217. 
Alsace,    9,    35,    46,    107, 

173,  193,  200,  278,  300, 

342,  349,  364,  369,  404. 
Altiar  EL,  216. 
Amazone  L',  356. 
Ambulance,  140,  204. 
Amc  des  Ch-efs  U,  33. 
Ame  dti  Soldat   U,  96  ff, 

255,  276. 
Ame     frangaise     et     la 

Guerre    U,  11. 
America,  20,  91,  99,  196, 

288,  378. 
Ami  Fritz  V,  343. 
Amica  America,  107. 
Anarchy,  200. 
Andre   Bieu,   33. 
Anges  gardiens  Les,  364. 
Anti-militarism,  16. 
Anvers,  161. 
Apollinaire  G.,  329. 
Appel  des  Armes  L',  70, 

95. 
Appel  du  Sol  U,  42,  93, 

100,  115. 


415 


INDEX 


Appel     du     Soldat      V, 

233  f. 
Apres  Guerre   L',  2f38. 
Araignee  du  Kaiser    L', 

377. 
Archeveque    et   son   Fils, 

V,  361. 
Ardennes,  190. 
Argonne,  31,  110. 
ArgTiilbert     M.,    228.' 
Ariel  et  Caliban,  156-7. 
Armistice,  200,  201. 
Arnoux    A.,  61. 
Arras,  170,  193. 
Arret  sur  la  Marne    V , 

317  ff. 
Artois,  12,  125. 
Assassin  Innombrable  U, 

295. 
Assomoir  U ,  343. 
Atrocities,  8,  8.4,  196,  342, 

355. 
Aubry  Abbe,  203. 
Audessus    d-e    la    Melee, 

19  ff,   97,   276. 
Audigier  C,  375. 
Aulard  A.,  254. 
Autre  Combat  U ,  357. 
Auxiliaires,  56,  59. 
Avant-Guerre     L',     236, 

366. 
.  Avenir  Notre,  282. 
Aveze,  366. 

Aviation,  55,  61,  84,  203. 
Aviators,  53, 176. 


Baehelin  H.,  373  f,  387. 

Badigeon,  aviateur,  55. 

Baldensperger  F.,  12. 

Ballades  frangaises,  313 
ff. 

Balzac,  63,  385  f. 

Baratier,  69. 

Barbarians,  5  f .,  8,  9,  84, 
156-7, 187, 189,  193  ff., 
208  f ,  212-15,  258, 
261,  340,  347. 

Barbusse  H.,  24,  33  ff., 
48,  59,  124  f .,  177,  180, 
221,  333,  383. 

Barres  M.  (see  Nation- 
alism), 11,  12,  233, 
256,  303,  321,  342,  364. 

Baslv  Em.,  193  ff. 

Bataille  H.,  301  ff.,  356. 

Band-Bovy,  216. 

Baulu   Marguerite,  161. 

Bazin  R.,  364,  374. 

Beethoven,  332. 

Belgique  La  Libre,  403. 

Belgium,  5,  9,  160  ff., 
173,  200,  204,  250,  258, 
288,  296,  347,  392. 

Bellouard  J.,  321  ff. 

Belphegor,  248. 

Benda  J.,  21,  98,  245  ff., 
261. 

Benjamin  R.,  30  ff.,  59  ff., 
383. 

Benoit  M.,  228. 

Berger  Cyril,  368.   , 


416 


INDEX 


Berger  Marcel,  44,  50,  56 

ff.,  372. 
Berfjson    H.,    8,    243  ff., 

263. 
Bernard  T.,  227. 
Bernardi,  245,  252. 
Bernhardt   Sarah,  348. 
Bernstein  H;,  345. 
Bertrand   A.,   42  ff.,    93, 

100  ff. 
Beulevwns   a   Marseilles, 

340,  360. 
Billaud  J.,  351. 
Billotey,  353. 
Billv  A.,  378. 
Binet-Valmer,  25,  177  ff. 
Bishur     au     Democratic 

Palace,  176. 
Bismarck,  232-3,  312. 
Blanche  J.,  218  ff. 
Blanchet  E.  L.,  212-13. 
Blesse    Journal    d'un 

Grand,  140,  207  f . 
Blue  Devils.     (See  Dia- 

bles  bleus. ) 
Boche,  97,  101,  155,  304. 
Bois  H.,  254. 
Boissiere  A.,  377. 
Bonnet    G.,    96  ff.,    173, 

276. 
Bordeaux  H.,  61, 153. 
Bomier  H.,  342-. 
Bosc  P.,  202. 
Bossuet,  258,  266. 
Botrel  Th.,  336. 


Boudon  v.,  236. 

Boue  sous  le  del  De  la, 

329. 
Boulangism,   233  f . 
Boulen-er  M.,  222,  374. 
Bourcier  M.,  190. 
Bourget  P.,  25,  154,  249. 

256,  274,  376  f . 
Bourgmestre     de     Stile- 

monde  Le,  341  f. 
Bourru,  Soldat  de   Vau- 

quois,  31,  50,  77,  176. 
Bout  de  Bibi,  379. 
Boutet  F.,  379. 
Boutroux    E.,    242,    247, 

262. 
Beyer  d'Agen,  329. 
Boylesve  R.,  372. 
Briand  Ch,  50. 
Brisson,  339,  361. 
British^    59  ff.,    67,    196, 

288,  378. 
Broyer  L.,  318. 
Bninean  L.,  238. 
Brunctiere  F.,  249,  256, 

258. 
Brunot  F.,  349. 
Buteau  M.,  157  ff. 
Butors  et  la  Finette  Les, 

317,  349  ff. 

Cabaret  Le,  61. 
Cafard,  122. 

Cahiers   de   la   Quizaine, 
13,  235,  245. 


417 


INDEX 


Cahiers  d'un  Artiste,  218 

ff. 
Calligrammes,  329. 
Capricieuse    La    Grande, 

367. 
Cambon  V.,  282. 
Candide,  101  ff. 
Canonge  Gen.,  8. 
Capitaine  Le,  91,  373. 
Captives.     See  Prisoners. 
Cartoons,  403^. 
Cassinou  va-t-en  Guerre, 

377. 
Cathedrales  Les,  348. 
Catherine  de  Russia,  250. 
Catholicism,   25,   92,   93, 

96,  323  f.,  376  f.,  392. 
Causse-Mael,  378. 
Celarie    Henriette,    192, 

202. 
Cent   Visions  de  Guerre, 

328. 
Ceux  de  VAn  14,  374. 
Ceux  de  la  Nuque,  221. 
Ceux  de  Verdun,  13. 
Chacun  son  Devoir,  367. 
Chagrin    so^is    les    vieux 

To  its,  225. 
Chalk-Pits,  170. 
Champagne,  154. 
Champenois  J.,  329. 
Chamsaur  F.,  295. 
Chansons,  336. 
Chansons  de  Guerre,  336. 
Chansons  de  Route,  336. 


Chansons  pour  les  Poilus, 

329. 
Chant  dans  la  Tourmente, 

303. 
Chant  de  Haine,  295. 
Chant     du     Renouveau, 

303. 
Chanteder,  304,  354. 
Chants  du  Bivouac,  336. 
Chants    de    Consolation, 

321  f . 
Chants    du    Soldat,    293, 

336. 
Charles  E.,  337,  352. 
Charlotte  en  Guerre,  222. 
Chateaubriand,  236,  385. 
Chauveau  L.,  122,  140. 
Chemin  des  Dames,  181. 
Chenu  Ch.  de,  378. 
Cheradame   A.,   238. 
Chevrillon  A.,  78,  79. 
Chevoleau  L'  Abbe,  96. 
Chignole,  53. 
Christian-Froge  R.,  203. 
Chuquet  A.,  200. 
Church   (see  also  Pope), 

12,  92,  237,  261,  274. 
Cing     P  r  i  e  r  e  s     pour 

Temps  de  Guerre,  323. 
Civilians,  190  ff. 
Civilization,    8,    18,    64, 

138  f .,  275. 
Clarte,  40. 
Claudel  P.,  254,  265,  315 

ff.,  346,  379. 


418 


INDEX 


Clavel  Soldat,  49. 

Clemenceau,   37,   2S2  ff. 

Closer ie  de  Champdolent 
La,  364. 

Coignard,  101. 

Colette  Baudoche,  342, 
364. 

Colombelle  Mme.,  103. 

Combarieu  J.,  229. 

Commentaires  de  Polyhe, 
39S. 

Commentaires  sur  la 
Guerre  des  Baches, 
13. 

Comte  A.,  246,  271. 

Contes  (See  short  sto- 
ries), 61. 

Contes  de  Guerre,  374. 

Coppee  Fr.,  256. 

Conieille,  342,  384. 

Comet,  69. 

Courage,  122. 

Couronne  Douleureuse 
La,  307  ff. 

Courteline,  227. 

Coutras  P.,  59. 

Couvreur  A..  356. 

Cran  Le,  223-5. 

Creer,  282. 

C'ritias  Sentiments  de,  21, 
245  ff,  261. 

Croire,  Histoire  d'un  Sol- 
dat, 107  fif. 

Croisset  Fr.  de,  357. 

Croix  de  Bois,  368. 


Croupe    de    Bellone   En, 

374. 
Cruelty   (see  also  terror- 

ization      and     similar 

words ) . 
Cruelty     of     German 

women,     196-7,     211, 

216. 
CjTiicism,  34. 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  224, 

304. 
Cyrano    aux    Tranchees, 

354  f. 


Danrit,  33. 
Darboise   Jean,  56  ff. 
Darwinian     Theory*,    276 

f.,  2S0. 
Daudet  A.,  115,  189. 
Daudet   E.,  207. 
Daudet  L.,  236  f.,  366. 
Debacle  La,  187,  389. 
Dehout  les  Morts,  147. 
Debris  de   la   Guerre,  9- 

10. 
Defense    de     Schirmeck, 

349. 
Dekobra  M.,  378. 
Delaniarre,  357. 
Delarue-Madrus      Mme., 

302. 
Dc'lemer  A.,  121. 
Delvert,  44,  153  ff.,  159, 

377. 


419 


INDEX 


Democratie   N  ouv  elle      Dreyfus-Affair,        233  f ., 


Vers  la,  287  ff. 
Democratism,  256,  269  ff. 
Derenne  Ch.,  377. 
Derieux  H.,  254,  330  ff. 
Denis  Jean, 
Dernier s  Jours  du  Fort 

de  Vaux,  153. 
Deroulede  Paul,  293,  329 

ff. 
Derriere  la  Bataille-,  122- 

123.      • 
Desastre  Le,  187,  364. 
Descartes,  65,  245,  266. 
Destruction,     198,     302, 

392.      ( See    Barbarian 

and   similar  words.) 
Biables  Bleus  Les,   140, 

141,  176. 
Diahles     Bleus    pendant 

la    Guerre    de    Deliv- 

rance,  141  ff. 
Diderot,  101,  250. 
Discipline,   90  ff. 
Divine  Trayedie  La,  301 

ff. 
Dixmude,  160  f . 
Donnay  M.,  227,  345. 
Dorgeles  R.,  368. 
Douaumont,  150,  188. 
Douleurs     qui     esperent, 

140. 
Dragon  Carnet  d'un,  159. 
Dramaturgie     de     Paris, 

361,  381. 


237. 
Droulers  A.,  201. 
Dubarle   Capt.,  147. 
Ducray  R.,  284. 
Dnfour  J.  J., 
Duhamel  G.,  90,  121,  123 

ff.,  383  f . 
Dumas  Andre,  348. 
Dumas  Dr.  G.,  123. 
Du  Tartre,  216. 

Ecole  de  la  Ouerre  A  V, 

22,  84  ff. 
Ecole  des  Indifferents  U, 

103. 
Ecoutes  de  la  France  qui 

vient  Aux,  204. 
Elevation,  345. 
Elkenfelder  Maj.,  35. 
Embusque  U ,  366. 
Emperor,  see  Kaiser. 
"En f ants  du  Crime,"  340. 
Enfant  du  Mort  V,  356. 
Energie    feminine    pend- 

dant  la  Guerre,  228. 
Energie  nationale  Roman 

de  V,  233,  256  f . 
Enfer  U,  38,  39. 
Engage    Volontaire    Me- 

moires  d'un,  177  ff. 
Epis  Rouges  Les,  351. 
Epoque  L',  364,  389. 
Erckman-Chatrian,  343. 
Erlande,  162  ff. 


420 


INDEX 


Esparbes  G,  de,  374. 
Etanger  Capt.  see  Nolly, 

70. 
Eternelle     Presence     U, 

348. 
Eteve  M.,  94  f . 
Evasion,  Recit   de  Deux 

Prisonniers,  216. 
Evasions  Les  Belles,  216. 
Evasions  Mes  six,  216. 
Extravagant  Teddy,  377. 


Fallet,   C,  216. 
Families  spirituelles  de  la 

France,  12. 
Fai-rere  CI.,  61,  358  f . 
Faust,  101. 
Femme  Frangaise  et  son 

activite,  228. 
Femmes    pendant    la 

Guerre,  228-9. 
Feuelon,  232. 
Ferry  J.,  272. 
Feu  Le,  24,  33  ff.,  42,  50, 

54,   59,   77,   107,   115, 

124  f.,  333,  363,' 368. 
Fiances  de  1914,  368. 
Fichte,  262. 
Fiction,  see  Novel. 
Fielle  P.,  123. 
Fierre  J.,  158,  181. 
Fifre  de  Bertrandoux  Le, 

329. 
Fille  de  Roland  La,  342. 


Flambeau    Gavroche    et, 

305. 
Fiambee  La,  338,  343. 
Flamme  au  Poing  La,  115 

If.,  138. 
Flamme    victorieuse    La, 

159  f. 
Flanders,  12,  160  ff.,  200. 
Flaubert,  275,  385. 
Fleg  E.,  329. 
Focb,  92. 

Foi  en  la  France,  311  ff. 
Foley,  377. 
Fontaine- Vive  J.,  21,  323 

f. 
Forgues  Capt.,  183  ff. 
Fort  Paid,  313  ff.,  329. 
Fosse  aux  Lions,  329. 
Fouebardiere    J.    de    la, 

377. 
Foulet  L.,  35. 
France   A.,   8,   101,   343, 

370. 
France      devant      VAlle- 

magne  La,  282  ff. 
France  La  plus  Grande, 

280. 
Franco-Prussian       War, 

187  f.,    310,    342,    346, 

364,  386,  389. 
Franconi  G.  T.,  174  ff. 
Frangipane  et  Cie,  55. 
Frapie,  L.,  374. 
Frederick  the  Great,  200, 

250. 


421 


INDEX 


Fregeoliere  R.  de  la,  203. 
Fresques   de   Feu   et    d& 

Sang,  365. 
Fribourg  Andre,  44,  107 

fe. 

Friedland,  172,  390. 
Fritz   Chez   les,  203. 
Fi-onson  J.  F.,  340,  360. 
Front    litteraire    de    De- 
main,  381. 
Frontieres  du  Coeur,  364. 
Fusilliers  mai'ins.,  160  f . 

Gagneur  Capt.  M.,  216. 

Gars  Le,  346. 

Gaspard,  30  ff.,  50,  54,  77, 

115,  159,  176,  363,  382, 
Gaultier  Paul,  231. 
Gavroehe,  31,  53,  304. 
Genevieve  Ste.,  257,  347. 
Genevoix    M.,   44,    75  ff,, 

384. 
Geniaux  Ch.,  368. 
Gens      de      Guerre      du 

Maroc,  70,  71. 
Gens  du  Front,  190. 
Gentry  R.,  159  f . 
Geraldy   P.,   220  f.,   318, 

361. 
Gerbeviller,  200. 
Germaniades,  295. 
Germany,  14,  15,  18,  19, 

26,  40,  67,  84,  85,  91, 

93,  104,  184,  188,  189, 

192  ff.,     214-15,     219, 


422 


231,   238  ff.,  248,   255, 

261,  290,  297,  332,  392, 

411. 
Gessner,  250. 
Gheon  L.,  25,  311  ff. 
Ginisty  P.,  216. 
Giraud  Victor,  269,  381. 
Giraudoux,  102  ff. 
Gloire  de   VArmee  fran- 

gaise,  329. 
Gloires  Les  Deux,  346. 
Goethe,     250  f .,     254  ff., 

332. 
Goneourt,    Prix,    30,    33, 

42,  115,  138. 
Gosses,  379. 
'Gottfried    Mauser   Le 

Journal  de,  308. 
Gotton  Conniocloo,  375. 
Gourmond  R.  de,  9,  14. 
Grandes  Heures  Les,  7. 
Grandgoujon,  31,  60. 
Granvillier  J.  de,  49. 
Gregh  F.,  307  ff. 
Gueriniere  F.  de  la,  365. 
Guerre  Role  social  de  la, 

280. 
Gu£rre   et    I'Amour   La, 

361. 
Guerre,  Madame  .  .  .  La, 

220  ff.,  318. 
Guerre  et  le  Progres  La, 

275  ff. 
Guerre  Sociale,  17. 
Guerre  Souterraine,  33. 


INDEX 


Guerre  sur  le  Hameau, 
373  f. 

Guerre  vue  d'une  Ambu- 
lance, 140. 

Guitounes  Au  seuil  des, 
78. 

Guitry  Lucien,  361. 

Guitrv  Sacha,  361. 

Gus  Bofa,  61,  377. 

Guynemer,  55. 

Gyp,  221-2. 

Ilalevy  Ludovic,  188. 

Hamp  P.,  286  f . 

Hatred,  10,  23,  85,  86, 
151-2,  295. 

Hauptmann  G.,  18,  25. 

Hauser  H.,  282. 

Haute-Cour  Morale,  20. 

Hazard,  202. 

Heine,  255,  332. 

Helys  Mme.  Marc,  217. 

Hemard  J.,  203. 

Henches,  22,  23,  41,  84  ff. 

Hennebois  Ch.,  140,  207 
ff. 

Hennequin,  346. 

Henriot  E.,  159. 

Henr^'-Jacques,  332  ff. 

Henry-Kosier  Marguer- 
ite," 225. 

Herriot  Ed.,  281. 

Hermant  A.,  369  ff. 

Her\'e  G.,  16,  17,  235. 

H cures  de  Guerre  de  la 


Famille    Valadier,    369 

ff. 
Hirsch  Ch.-H.,  367. 
llistoire  de  Quatorze  Sol- 

dats,  61. 
llistoire   d'une   Compag- 

nie,  153  ff.,  377. 
Home    on    the    Field    of 

Honor,  191. 
Homme  de  Desir  L',  265. 
Honor  (military),  343. 
Huard  Mme.,  191. 
Hugo    Victor,    31,    233, 

236,  265,  296,  304,  385, 

390. 
Humanism,  17. 
Huns    (see   Barbarians), 

74,  199,  347. 
Huot  Dr.,  122. 
Hyacinthe-Loyson    Paul, 

21. 

Ibanez  B.,  365. 
Hlusioniste  U ,  361. 
Imperialism,  260. 
Improm])tu     du     Paque- 

tage  V ,  345. 
Ineffagahle  U,  299  ff. 
Infirmiers  et  Infirmieres, 

140  f.,  192. 
Institut  et  la  Guerre  V, 

228. 
Instittiteur  et   la  Guerre 

L'.  228. 
Intellectualism,  239  ff. 


423 


INDEX 


Intellectuals,  19,  43,  239 

ff. 

French,  24,  43. 

German,  18,  251,  276, 
•    31C. 

Internationalism,  16. 
Intuitionism,  239  ff. 
Invasion,  8,  188.     • 

Jacquet  H.  M.,  346. 
Jammes  F.,  25,  323. 
Jaures,  242,  304. 
Jean-Christophe,    17,    18 

fE.,  324. 
Jean  Gouin,  La  Brigade 

des,  160. 
Jeanne  d'Arc,  18,  88,  257, 

322,   326,   348  ff.,    388, 

392. 
Jeune    Fille    aux    J  ones 

Roses,  352. 
Jeune  Fille  Frangaise  et 

la  Guerre  La,  229. 
Jeunes     Gens     A     quoi 

revent  les,  159. 
Jeunesse     Ardente,     21, 

323  f . 
Joffre,  104,  318,  347. 
Jolivet,  153. 
Jolicoeiir,  Tommy  Cana- 

dien,  378. 
Joug  Allemand  Hers  du, 

238. 
Jouir,  367. 
Jour  a  V autre  D'un,  357. 


Journal     d'un     Grand 

Blesse,  140,  207  ff. 
Journal  d'un  Simple  Sol- 

dat,  204. 
Journal     d'une     Famille 

pendant      la      Guerre, 

228. 
Journal  d'une  Frangaise, 

216. 
Jours  Dechirants  En  ces, 

330  ff, 
Jugement     Dernier,     Le, 

120. 
Julia  Dr.  E.  F.,  95  f. 
Junod     (Junot),    168-9, 

171. 
Juste     Lobel,     Alsacien, 

364. 

Kaiser  (see  also  Impe- 
rialism), 93,  150,  186, 
200,  240,  260- ff.,  296 
ff.,  377. 

Kant,  14,  15,  16,  242, 
245,  252,  254  ff.,  262, 
332. 

Kistemaeker,  H.,  338, 
343  f . 

Klein  Abbe,  140. 

Kommandantur,  340. 

Krupp,  252,  379. 

Kultur,  198,  308,  365, 
369,  403. 


424 


Lachapelle,  281. 


INDEX 


La  Fayette,  207. 

La  Hire  Marie,  228. 

Lamartine,  385. 

Lamy  P.,  228. 

Langlois  H.,  236. 

Langlois  G.,  8. 

Lanux  P.,  244,  286,  313. 

Lapie,  228. 

Lasserre    P.,    249,    255, 

257. 
Laudenbaeb,  358. 
Lavedan    H.,    7,    338  f., 

348. 
Lazarine,  376. 
Le  Bail  G.,  160. 
Le  Bon  G.,  240  f . 
Leclerc  Max,  325  ff. 
Legons  de  la  Guerre,  248 

ff. 
Lecoq,  295. 

Lectures  pour  une   Om- 
bre, 102  ff. 
Legende  des  Siecles,  388 

f. 
Legion    Etrangere    En 

CamjJagne  avec,  102  ff. 
Legionnaire,  102  ff.,  176. 
Le  Goffic  Ch.,  53,  160  f. 
Lemaitre  J.,  249,  256. 
Lemercier  E.  E.,  78. 
Lens  Martyr  de,  193  ff., 

205. 
Leroux  G.,  379. 
Le  Roux  Hugues,  225  f . 
Lessing,  250,  361. 


Lettres     d,     une     Dame 

Blanche,  227. 
Lettres  d'un  Combattant, 

94  f. 
Lettres   d'un   Soldat,  41, 

78  ff.,  84,  85,  94. 
Leune  Mme.,  192. 
Level,  M.,  374. 
L'Herbier,  356. 
Lichtenberger  A.,  364., 
Liege,  162. 

Ligue  des  Patriotes,  11. 
Lille,  192,  200  ff. 
Lintier,  72  ff.,  79. 
Lissauer,  295. 
Litterature  et  la  Guerre, 

275,  381. 
London  Jack,  271. 
Lorraine,  9,  12,  46,  107, 

173,  192,  234,  236,  302, 

342,  349,  364  f .,  369. 
Lote  R.,  98,  248  ff. 
Loti  P.,  7. 
Louis  the  Fourteenth,  93, 

227,  251. 
Loups  Les,  375. 
Lusitania,  80,  262  f.,  370. 
Luther,   254,   260,  262  f. 
Lysis,  99,  287  ff. 


Machard  A.,  379. 
MacOrlan,  377. 
Maeterlinck,  9,  10,  341  f ., 
374. 


425 


INDEX 


3Iain    qui    tend    VEpee, 

348. 
Maistre    Joseph    de,    16, 

254,  258. 
Malabe  La,  378. 
Malherbe  Henry,  44,  115 

ff. 
Malvy,  36,  37. 
Marceau,  ou  les  Enfants 

de  la  Republique,  343. 
Marchand  d'Estampes  Le, 

357. 
Marcus  Aurelius,  79, 167. 
Maree  Fraiche,  286. 
Marge     du    Drame    En, 

220. 
Margueritte       Brothers, 

187,  364,  389. 
Margueritte  Paul,  7,  364 

ff. 

Manage  de  Lison,  373. 

Mariee  en  1914,  367. 

Mame  Battle  of,  5,  12, 
17,  19,  52,  53,  72,  74, 
103,  105,  106,  121, 
160,  175, 179, 180,  185, 

188,  190,  236,  303,  315 
ff.,  348,  389. 

Marraines,   229. 
Marseillaise,  304  ff.,   314, 

333. 
Marsouille,  La,  123. 
Marthe  Steiner,  366. 
Marthold  J.  de,  295. 
Martm  L.  L.,  368. 


Martin-Mamy,  202. 
Marty  re  de  Lens,  193  ff. 
Martyrs   Vie  des,  121  ff. 
Marx  K.,  see  Socialism. 
Massacre   des   Innocents, 

379. 
Massis  H.,   21,  25,  253, 

263  ff.,  384. 
Mauelair  C,  35,  381. 
Maupassant,  28,  189. 
Maurel  A.,  16,  263,  284. 
Maurois  A.,  378. 
Maurras    Ch.,    237,   249, 

257,  274. 
Mayran  Canaille,  375. 
Medecins,  208-11. 
Medecin  de  France,  Un, 

123. 
Meditations     dans     la 

Tranchee,  87  ff. 
Mercier  (Cardinal),  258. 
Mercier  Louis,  319  ff. 
Mercure   de  France,   24, 

124,   139,   395. 
31  e  t  h  o  de  s   allemandes 

d' Expansion,  282. 
Metiers  Blesses,  286. 
Meuse,  188,  200. 
Michaux  Baronne  J.,  220. 
Michel,  50  ff.,  53,  58. 
Michelet,  232. 
Milan  Rene,  182. 
Military  Life,  400. 
Mille  PieiTe,  374. 
Mines,  285  ff. 


426 


INDEX 


Mirdbelle  de  Pampelune, 

375. 
Miracle    du    Feu,    50  ff., 

372. 
Miracle     Frangais,     2G9, 

329,  381. 
Missionnaire  Le,  369. 
Momes  Guerre  des,  379. 
Montesquieu,  290. 
Moral  regeneration,  52. 
Moralism,  242  f . 
Moraud  E.,  348. 
Morocco,  69,  70,  71,  110, 

111,  203,  283  f.     (See 

also  Gens  de  Guerre  du 

Maroc. ) 
Mort  au  Champ  d'Hon- 

neur,  225  f . 
Mort  du  Soldat,  95  f. 
Mortier  A.,  301,  381. 
Mort    Sens    de    la,    154, 

376, 
Moselly  E.,  372. 
Mourey  G.,  303. 
Mousquetaires,  54,  343. 
Mousquetaires    Les    der- 
nier s,  55. 
Muller  Major,  164  ff. 
Mur  des  Pleiirs  Le,  329. 
Musset  A.  de,  385. 
Mystere    des    Beatitudes, 

222. 


Nadaud  M.,  53  £E. 


Napoleonic  "Wars,  146, 
277,  388. 

Nationalism,  256  f. 

Natorp,  214  f . 

N  en  esse,  159. 

Neo-Catholicism,  255  ff., 
274  f.,  381.  (See  Ca- 
tholicism.) 

Nepoty  L.,  358  f . 

Neutrality,  21.  (See 
also  Holland.) 

Neuville-Saint-Vaast,170. 

Neveu  de  I'Oncle  Sam, 
378. 

Newspapers  and  Periodi- 
cals, 6. 

Nion  Fr.  de,  368. 

Niox,  216. 

Nieuport,  160. 

Nietzsche,  254  i¥.,  332. 

Noailles  Madame  de,  302, 
329. 

Noces  d' Argent,  361. 

Nolly,  70,  71,  89. 

Non-eombattants,   189  ff. 

Normand  Gilles,  329. 

Notes  d'une  Internee 
Frangaise,    216. 

Nothonil)   P.,  9. 

Notre  Patrie,  16,  235. 

Nous,  de  la  Guerre,  332 
ff. 

Nouveaux  Chants  du  Sol' 
dat,  293. 

Nouvelle     Revue     Fran- 


427 


INDEX 


gaise,  13,  14,  236,  286, 

317,  387. 
Novel     (see    War-novel, 

and  War-Time  novel). 
Noziere,  340. 
Nuit    de   Noel   de   1914, 

346,  379. 
Nuits  de  Guerre,  78. 

Oberle  Les,  364. 

Oberle      Les     Nouveaux, 

364. 
Obus  Sous  L',  61. 
Odyssee    d'un   Transport 

Torpille]  182  ff. 
Oeuvre  de  Demain,  281. 
Ollivier,  Cap.,  212. 
Oncle  Sam  Neveu  de  V, 

378. 
Onze  Mais  de  Captivite, 

212. 
Orage  G.,  (see  also  Can- 

dide),  101  ff. 
Orgueil  Frangais  La  Be- 

naissance  de,  271  ff. 


Pacifism,  Defeatism,  etc., 
37,  99,  110,  255. 

"  Pamir,"  183  if. 

Pan-Germanism,  214, 
232,  238,  252,  254. 

Papalism,  255  ff. 

I'ape,  la  Guerre  et  la 
Paix  Le,  258  ff. 


Parisienne   et   la   Guerre 

La,  229. 
Parisienne  en  Temps  de 

Guerre,   Souvenirs 

d'une,  229. 
Parodi,  246. 
Parti     de     Vlntelligence, 

Pour  le,  25. 
Passion   de  Notre  Frere 

le  Poilu,  325  ff. 
Pasteur  Louis,  308. 
Patrie,  17,  342,  367. 

Notre,  16,  235. 

Leur,  16,  235. 
Patriotism,  88. 
Patte  Paul,  223-5. 
Pawlowski  G.  de,  61,  285. 
Pegaiy,  13,  16,  234,  244, 

246,  257,  264,  271,  293 

&.,  308,  315,  350. 
Peine  des  Hommes,  286. 
Peladan,  8. 
Pelerin  Mutile,  121. 
Pendant  la  Guerre,  368. 
Pendant  qu'il  se  hat,  368. 
Pericard  Jacques,  147  ff., 

384. 


Periodicals 

papers). 
Physicians 

121  ff. 
Physiocrats,  290 
Pichon,  262. 
Piece  Ma,  72  ff. 
Pierrette,  373. 


(see    News- 
( Writers), 


428 


INDEX 


Pingaud, 

Pingot  et  Moi,  G6  ff .,  91. 

Pinguet  J.,  160. 

Pipe  Major,  31,  59  ff. 

Plus  Haul  que  VAmour, 

350. 
Poemes  de  la  Delivrance, 

318. 
Poemes  de  France,  313. 
Poemes   de   la    Tranchee, 

319  ff. 
Poetes  de  la  Guerre,  329. 
Poll  civil  Gazette,  227. 
Poilu,  150,  32.5  f.,  354  f. 
Poilu  Le,  346. 
Poilu,  see  Passion, 
Poing    de   Fer   Satis    le, 

201. 
Poissons  Morts,  377. 
Pope,      87.     (See      also 

Church,   etc.) 
Porehe  F.,  317  f .,  349  ff., 

384. 
Porto-Riche  G.  de,  357. 
Portraits     de     la     Belle 

France,  225. 
Possession     du     Monde, 

139. 
Post- War    Literature, 

381,  388. 
Potteeher  M.,  303. 
Poulbot,  379,  404. 
Pour  Renaitre,  287  ff. 
Prevost  M.,  364  f. 
Pre-War  Literature,  388. 


Priere  dans  la  Nuit,  340. 
Prieres   de   la    Tranchee, 

319  ff. 
Prieur,  216. 
Prisoners,  202  ff.,  402. 
Prisonnier  en  Allemagne, 

203. 
Prisonnier      de      Guerre, 

202. 
Prisonniers  Delivres,  153. 
Prix  de  I'Homme,  49. 
Probus,  280. 
Propaganda,  366. 
Protestants,  96,  236,  259, 

266,  323,  392. 
Provinces      pendant      la 

Guerre    Les.     See    Al- 

phaud. 
Prussianism,  15,  25,  111, 

150,  232,  290. 
Psichari   E.,   70,   71,   95, 

264  f. 

Quatrefages  B.  de,  8. 
Quinet      Edgar,      231  f., 
249. 

Bail  Le,  286. 
Rathenau  M.,  290. 
Eecits  d'un  Soldat,  188. 
Recits   du   Temps   de   la 

Giierre,  374. 
Red     Cross,     152,     188, 

192-3,  204,  216. 
Redier  A.,  44,  87  ff.,  373. 


429 


INDEX 


Reformation,  259  f .,  263. 

See  also  Protestantism. 
Begiment  Husse  Mon,  68. 
Bemarques,  14. 
Renaissance,  384,  386. 
Renan,  101,  219,  233. 
Represailles,  212-13. 
Beveil    de    VEsprit    Le, 

266  ff. 
Revolution   French,   107, 

240,  254,  266,  288,  290, 

385  ff. 
Rey  Etienne,  271  ff. 
Rheims,    125,    190,    200, 

306,  348,  349. 
Rhine,  18,  233,  369. 
Ribot  Th.,  246. 
Richepin  Jacques,  361. 
Riehepin  Jean,  7. 
Bides  du  Front  Dans  les, 

285. 
Right    (and  Might),  20, 

245  f .,  255,  262. 
Rimbaud  Isabelle,  190  f . 
Riou  G.,  203  ff.,  323. 
Riviere   Jacques,   213  ff., 

254. 
Rivoli,  172,  390. 
Roe  Art  (Pseudonjrm  for 

Patrice  Mahon),  66  ff., 

70,  71,  88,  91. 
Roland,  79,  342,  388  ff. 
Bole  social  de  la  Guerre, 

280. 
Rolland  Romain,  16,  24, 


87,  96,  255,  276,  324. 
Romains  Jules,  124. 
Boman  de  VEnergie  Na- 

tionale,  233,  257.     See 

also  Barres. 
Roman  Catholicism.    See 

Catholicism. 
Boman   M  il  it  a  i  r  e   en 

France  1870-1914,  71, 

393. 
Romanticism,    246,    249, 

257,    282,    385  f. 
Romach  Admiral,  161. 
Rostand,  304  ff.,  329,  353, 

389,  393. 
Rougier  P.,  318. 
Bouletabille,  379. 
Rousseau,   49,   231,   249, 

262,   266  ff.,   279,  282, 

291. 
Roussel-Lepine  T.,  140. 
Rouves  Ch.  de,  369. 
Roux-Parnasse  E.,  164. 
Ruins  (see  words  like  De- 

stniction.    Barbarians, 

etc). 
Russia,    165,    173,    206, 

239,  270. 

Sacrifice  Le,  263  ff .,  358. 
Sacrifices  Les,  349. 
Sageret  J.,  99,  275  ff. 
Saint-Die,   202. 
Sainte-Genevieve,       257, 
347. 


430 


INDEX 


Saint-Mihiel,  207. 
Saint-Quentin,  179,  202. 
Sammy,    V  olontaire 

Americain,  378. 
Sang    du     Sacrifice    Le, 

299. 
Sang  Le,  50. 
Sardou,  342. 

Schelling  Friedrich,  255. 
Scipion  Pegoulade,  377. 
Sedan,  188,  389. 
Seilliere  E.,  249,  257. 
Sem,  404. 
Senlis,  200,  309  f . 
Sens  de  la  Mort,  154,  375. 
Sentiments  de  Critias,  21. 
Sept  Paralipomenes,  329. 
Servir,  338  f . 
Service    de    VAllemagne 

Au,  234. 
Service  de  I'Ennemi  Au, 

369. 
Servitude     et     grandeur 

Militaire,  65. 
Short  Story,  61  f.,  374  f. 
Sicard  E.,  351. 
Signaux  a  L'Ennemi,  61. 
Silences    du     Colonel 

Bramble  Les,  378. 
Six    Femmes    et    I'lnva- 

sion,  192. 
Socialism,    16,    19.    242, 

252,  259,  290,  392. 
Soir  OH  Front.  343. 
Soldats  de  1914,  302. 


Sorbonne    Esprit    de    la 

NouveUe,  253. 
Souffles  de  Tempete,  302. 
Soulie,  340. 
Sous  leur  Dictee,  374. 
Souvenirs    de    Tranchee, 

327. 
Spy,    1&7,    237  ff.,    338, 

364  ff.,  392. 
Stael  Mme.  de,  385. 
Steenstraete,  160. 
Steinmetz,  280. 
Suares  Andre,  13,  14,  15, 

236,  254. 
Subenille  J.,  329,  354 f. 
Switzerland,   212,  288. 
Siflvette    et    son    Blesse, 

377. 

Taboureau,  33. 
Taine,  233,  246,  375. 
Talma>Te  M.,  225. 
Tambour  Sur  un,  374. 
Tank,  175,  181. 
Tarde,  253,  264. 
Targette,  170. 
Temoin  Le,  299. 
Tenir,   157  f. 
Terre  Natale,  366. 
Terre  qui  natt,  375. 
Terrorization,  5,  151,  341. 
Thamin   R.,  228. 
Theatre  aux  Armees,  346. 
Theatre  des  Allies,  351. 
Theatre   Heroique,   264. 


431 


INDEX 


Theatre    pendant    la 

Guerre,  361. 
Thierry  Albert,  203,  412. 
Thomas     Louis,     141  ff., 

148. 
Tinayre     Marcelle,     190, 

217. 
Torpilleur  80  000  Milles 

en,  158,  181. 
Totoche,    Prisonnier    de 

Guerre,  378. 
Traits     Eternels     de     la 

France,  12,  303. 
Treitzschke,  252. 
Tribulations    d'un    Auxi- 

liaire,  59. 
Trois  Etapes,  160,  182. 
Trois  Poemes  de  Guerre, 

315  ff. 
Trouillot  G.,  304. 
True  G.,  263. 
Tu  n'es  Plus  Rien,  372. 
Tube  1233  Le,  72,  73. 
Turoldus,  388. 
Types    Soldier — in   Nov- 
els, 27  ff. 


Una,  329. 

TJn  Tel  de  VArmee  Fran- 

gaise,  174. 
Union  Sacree,  7,  11. 
United    States,    13,    40, 

173,  186,  270,  274,  288, 

290. 


Universite   et   la   Guerre 

L',  228. 
Urville  Mme.  d',  192. 

Vagabonds   de   la   Gloire 

les,  182. 
Vaissette,  44  ff.,  50,  101. 
Vallery-Radot  R.,  264  ff. 
Vallotton  B.,  200,  375. 
Vandalism,  197,  198,  200. 
Vauquois,  31.     (See  also 

Verdun.) 
Vaux  Fort  de,  153. 
Veber  P.,  346. 
Veillee  d'  Armes,  358  f. 
Veillee  des  Armes,  190, 

217. 
Veillee  du  Centurion,  70, 

95. 
Verhaeren,  9,  295  ff. 
Verlet  P.,  329. 
Vermine  du  Monde,  366. 
Vemet,  357. 
Verdun,   13,   14,   31,   56, 

57,   59,   75,   121,    126, 

147  ff..  153  ff.,  160, 176, 

180,  296,  308,  323,  351, 

389. 
Verdun  Ceux  de,  147  ff. 
Verdun  Sous,  75  ff. 
Vic  J.,  26,  255,  363,  391. 
Victor  et  ses  Amis,  379. 
Victory,  382. 
Victoire   La,   17. 
Vie  des  Martyrs,  121  ff. 


432 


INDEX  ■ 


Vierge  de  Lutece,  347  f . 
Vignaiul,  lil. 
Vignes-Kouges  Jean  des, 

31  ft". 
Vigny  A,  de,  05,  00,  87, 

89.' 
Villele  Aline  de,  366. 
Villeroy  A.,  347  f. 
Vin  de  Champagne,  28(). 
Visme  Henriette  de,  229. 
Vivre    pour    la    Patrie, 

374. 
Vocance  J.,  328. 
Voivenel  Dr.,  122. 
Voix  dans  la  Fournaise, 

329. 
Vol    de    la    Marseillaise, 

304  ff. 
Volontaires,  164,  211. 
Voltaire,    46,    101,    250, 

290. 
Von  Kommenden  Dingen, 

290. 
Vosges,   142,   146,   147. 

Wagner  K.,  332. 
War  as  a  Means  of  Se- 
lection,   280. 
War  Cause  of,  275  fF. 
War-Diaries    and    War- 


Recollections,  30,  62  ff.. 

141  ft'.,  187. 
War  Italian,  384. 

Napoleonic,    140,    277, 

385. 
War-Lords,    see    Kaiser, 

etc. 
Warnod  A.,  202  f. 
War-Novel,  27  ff.,  363. 
War-Time-Novel,      23  ff., 

303  ff. 
Wells  H.  G.,  285,  365. 
Werth,  L.,  49. 
Wetterle  Abbe,  9,  369. 
Wilde  Robert  de,  162. 
Williams      H.      Isabelle, 

127  ff. 
Wolf  P.,  346. 

Y ,  182  ff. 


Yerta  Mme.,  192. 
Ypres,   147. 
Yser,  161,  162,  389. 
Yver,   Colette,   222,   375, 
378. 

Zamacois,  299  ff.,  346, 349. 
Zavio  E.,  203. 
Zola,  187,  343,  364,  336. 
389. 


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